


Mr. and Mrs. Fitz

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mr. & Mrs. Smith Fusion, Challenge Response, F/M, TFSN Rom Com Challenge, fsromcom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:03:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7963498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two best friends, sharing a house and a life, each blissfully unaware that the other is a secret agent. Until their next targets… are each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My submission for the Fitzsimmons Network Rom Com Challenge. I'll be posting updates at regular intervals today so there's a *little* bit of suspense. :P Endless gratitude to consoledacup for betaing and helping me maintain my sanity. 
> 
> I realized Mr. and Mrs. Smith isn't exactly a rom com but... oh well. I have mixed feelings about this work but I hope you find something in it to like <3

Jemma slammed her fist down on her alarm clock -- she’d long ago calibrated the exact force needed to express her frustration without breaking the device -- and rolled over with a groan. Another night of working too late, another week that felt too long. She really needed a change. 

The only perk, she thought with a smile as she pulled the blankets up to her chin, was that she could already smell breakfast. After seven years, she still couldn’t pinpoint what caused Fitz to be spontaneously considerate, but she certainly wasn’t going to risk ruffling his feathers by asking. 

She’d showered the night before when she got home, so she squirmed into some stockings, a pencil skirt, a white button-up and a blazer. She debated stealing one of Fitz’s skinny ties to complete the outfit, but he was rather touchy about her going through his closet. 

“Morning!” she called, doing her hair up into a bun as she entered the kitchen, where Fitz was standing at the stove in his bathrobe. “You’re up early.” 

“Thought I’d have to drag you out of bed,” Fitz teased as she passed behind him, rubbing a hand across his shoulders in greeting. “Late night?” 

“You’ve no idea,” she groaned, glad she hadn’t put on any make-up so she could rub her eyes as much as she wanted. “If the pay weren’t quite so good I’d revolt.” 

“Hmm, that’s almost the story of capitalism, except the pay’s never that good.” 

He handed her two plates with eggs and tomatoes and followed her, a mug of tea in each hand, to the kitchen table. They traded one of each and Jemma gratefully wrapped her hands around the hot mug. 

Fitz watched her, chewing on a slice of tomato really too big to eat in one go. “You sure you don’t want to cut back on your hours? My work can more than support us--” 

“That wasn’t part of the arrangement, Fitz,” she scolded. 

“I don’t really think any of this was part of the arrangement,” he reminded her with a lopsided grin. 

“Yes, well, it’s worked out pleasantly, hasn’t it?” She nudged him under the table with one foot. 

“Oi! Your feet are freezing!” he yelped, pushing her away. 

“I’m wearing stockings!” 

“Like that little bit of synthetic fabric does anything to protect me against your icicle-toes,” he grumbled. 

“Just shut up and do your crossword,” Jemma chuckled, shoving the newspaper across the table to him. 

After breakfast, Jemma washed the dishes while Fitz quickly got ready for work. He met her in the front hallway, where she adjusted his collar and handed him his briefcase. 

“Oh! I nearly forgot!” she exclaimed as he pulled the front door shut behind him and they started off down the front walk together. “I’m meeting Barbara Morse for lunch today.” 

“Hurricane Bobbi? I didn’t know you still kept in touch with her.” 

“I don’t, really, but she’s in town for work and she texted me. It’ll be a nice blast from the past, a reminder of simpler times--” 

“University was never simple, Jemma,” Fitz chuckled, opening his car door. 

“But it was definitely more interesting than our lives now,” she shot back with a pout. 

“Well, that wouldn’t take much -- construction contracting and accounting aren’t exactly on the top of children’s Dream Job lists.” 

“I, for one, love spreadsheets, so--” She stuck her tongue out at him, grinning. “Have a good day at work, Fitz.” 

“You too, Jem. And say hi to Bobbi for me.” 

 

 

“A glass of Riesling, please.” 

“And for me... a mineral water, I think.” 

“Nuh-uh,” Bobbi said quickly, grabbing Jemma’s menu back from the waiter. “It’s my treat, Jemma, so you’re going to order something more expensive than mineral water. For God’s sake.” 

“I’ve got to go back to work after this!” Jemma protested. 

“When has that ever stopped any of us from drinking?” 

“Fair enough,” Jemma chuckled. “Erm... In that case... I’ll have a Riesling as well.” 

“Make it a whole bottle,” Bobbi added to the waiter, who nodded and hurried away. 

“Are you trying to sabotage my work?” Jemma demanded. 

“Were you this much of a lightweight and a coward in college?” 

“Funny, I seem to remember drinking you under the table at every frat party, Barbara.” 

“Okay, enough flirting,” Bobbi laughed, leaning across the table. “I want to know everything that’s happened since I last saw you -- when was that, Montreal? How are you, girl?” 

“I’m good,” Jemma said automatically, then repeated more slowly, “Really, I’m good. Work is... a lot, though I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that-- You practically perfected this business--” 

“Bah.” Bobbi waved her hand, dismissing the praise. 

“But all things considered, things are good. Fitz and I have a house in the suburbs--” 

“Woah woah woah, what? Last I heard you two were getting married so you wouldn’t get deported--” 

“Yes, exactly,” Jemma replied calmly. “He’d always said he wanted to relinquish his American citizenship, tainted as it was with memories of his dad, but once the visa issue came up he was really quite sweet about it.” 

“Sooooo,” Bobbi said slowly, accepting a glass of wine absentmindedly from the waiter, so laser-focused was she on Jemma’s reactions, “you two are... together together now?” 

“Oh, no no no,” Jemma laughed, used to this mistake by now. “We’re just friends.” 

“Did you ever get divorced?” 

“No, it never seemed necessary,” Jemma shrugged. 

“So, friends who have been married for seven years and live together,” Bobbi corrected, eyebrows raised. 

“Yes, but--” Jemma huffed and took a gulp of her wine. “Obviously when you say it that way it sounds odd--” 

“If there’s another way to say it, please enlighten me.” 

“You know, I thought I missed you, but now I’m remembering what a nag you could be sometimes, Miss Morse,” Jemma clucked with affectionate annoyance. 

“Do you guys, like, sleep in the same bed?” 

“Stop it!” Jemma giggled, covering her eyes. “We have separate bedrooms.” 

“But I’m guessing you share a bathroom? And brush your teeth side-by-side and wish each other sweet dreams--” 

“Believe it or not, work makes it a bit hard to brush our teeth side-by-side every night!” Jemma knew she was entirely side-stepping the point. 

“Hmm. Does he know, then, about work -- your real work?” 

“No,” Jemma murmured, looking down into her wine, her happy little bubble instantly popped. “No, I’d hate to imagine what he would think of me if he found out.” 

 

 

Jemma got home first, as usual, and set about making dinner. Fitz was bound to be ravenous by the time he got off work and she always took significant satisfaction from the way his eyes would roll back in his head when he took a bite of her famous ratatouille. 

She’d just stuck the dish into the oven when headlights flashed against the far wall. There were still a good forty-five minutes before Fitz should have been home. In a second, she crossed to the island in the middle of the kitchen and drew out a paring knife, flicking it idly between her fingers as she listened for the garage door, to which only she and Fitz had the passcode. When it rattled open, she stabbed the knife into the breadboard and flexed her hand. God, she needed a vacation. 

“Please tell me that’s ratatouille I smell,” Fitz sighed, stopping in the doorway. 

“You’re home early!” 

“There was an issue on one of the downtown sites, and afterwards I couldn’t focus, so I just left early. Perks of being in charge.” He pulled a bottle from his bag and threw his things over a chair. “I bought that wine you like, but if it doesn’t go with dinner--” 

“No, that should be perfect! It’s not going to be ready for a while yet, but we can have a glass while we wait.” 

She stepped aside so that Fitz could get the bottle opener out of the drawer against which she’d been leaning. He held the bottle while she twisted it open, and they both cried out in delight when the cork popped free. 

“Cheers, Mrs. Fitz,” Fitz chuckled, once he’d poured for them both. 

“I told you we should’ve made it Fitzsimmons,” Jemma muttered into her glass. Her smile faded as she thought back to her conversation with Bobbi. 

 

After dinner, Fitz dropped onto the couch with a groan. “God, I’m knackered.” 

Jemma filled both their glasses and sat beside him, the cushions dipping so their legs ended up pressed against each other. Fitz draped his arm casually along the couch behind her and flicked on the TV -- Jeopardy was on and they enjoyed being smarter than the contestants a bit too much. 

Jemma wasn’t sure which one of them fell asleep first, but the next thing of which she was aware was Fitz’s arm around her shoulder and the hard seam of his shirt pressed into her cheek. She jerked fully awake, her knees slipping off his thigh. Her phone was ringing somewhere -- the phone. 

Running across the hardwood on her tiptoes so as to not disturb Fitz, whose head had lolled adorably back in sleep, she crossed to the hallway where her jacket was hanging and fished the phone out of the deep front pocket. 

“Hello?” she whispered. 

“Agent Simmons, there’s a hot one tonight. We need you in the city in half an hour.” 

“Jemma?” Fitz groaned from the couch, twisting to look for her. 

She covered the mouthpiece on the phone. “Sorry, Fitz, I’ve got to go back into work -- someone deleted the entire case file for our big meeting tomorrow--” Ignoring his mumbled questions, she ran upstairs to get ready and said into the phone, “Tell me what to do.”


	2. Chapter 2

Fitz waited on the couch as Jemma changed upstairs. She came back down quickly in knee-high leather boots and a long black jacket and he frowned -- really, if they were asking her to come into work this late in the evening, they could at least let her show up in her pajamas.

“Are we still going to the neighbors’ party tonight?” he asked, catching her fingertips as she passed behind the couch and tugging her back towards him.

“I expect we’ll both be ready to collapse but we did promise to put in an appearance,” Jemma sighed, lightly tracing the inside curve of one of the curls on the back of his head. “Do you think you could step out and buy some more wine while I’m gone? The stores will be closed by the time I’m headed back and we don’t have anything else to take.”

“Of course. Meet you there?”

“You’re the best, Fitz.” Jemma patted his head one more time and strode to the front door, heels clacking in the hall.

Fitz stayed slumped on the couch, watching the clock on the mantelpiece. Exactly five minutes after Jemma’s headlights had disappeared, he stood up, washed their wine glasses, and went to get ready himself.

He’d planned to wait a few more nights before he completed this objective, but Jemma’s sudden departure gave him a clear opening, and he knew better than to pass up these fleeting chances.

He frowned at himself in the bathroom mirror. A sweater vest probably wouldn’t sell the role he was going to play tonight, though he’d need it again later for the party. For now, though, he shucked it off, undid the first few buttons of his pressed blue shirt, and stroked a hand down his cheek, wishing he’d chosen not to shave that morning. The stubble always made him look and feel older and more intimidating.

He felt guilty every time he was prickly towards Jemma about stealing his clothes, especially as he knew during university she had always loved to lounge in his pajama bottoms or fall asleep in his cardigans, the sleeves rolled up so they wouldn’t drape past her hands. But what he couldn’t risk her finding was the second set of clothes behind his everyday wear.

That second set, only ever purchased with cash, was the wardrobe from which he now selected: a snug black leather jacket and weathered black jeans, which had a tight fit beyond what he would ever be able to wear in front of Jemma without considerable teasing.

After changing, he threw his regular slacks, the sweater vest, his dendrotoxin gun, a wad of bills and some additional props into a black duffle and headed downtown.

He parked around the corner from the dive bar and splashed some whiskey like aftershave on his throat -- enough to suggest he was well into the night, not enough to irritate the bouncer.

The recon work had been done for him, so once inside he put on a show of stumbling along the bar and towards the restroom, taking a sharp turn at the last minute. His heart sped up as he approached the unmarked door, as it always did on a mission, but he pressed his elbow against his side to assure himself of the gun hidden under his jacket and counted to three before bursting through the door.

“‘oo the ‘ell are you?” shouted a red-faced man, rising halfway from the table in the middle of the room. Fitz spotted a gun in the man’s left hand and quickly stumbled sideways.

“What’s a guy gotta do to take a piss in this place, am I right?” he drawled drunkenly. They were Brits, the lot of them, so he went with American Southern for the night. “Thought this was the bathroom. Sorry, y’all.”

“This here’s a private poker game,” a second man snarled. “That door’s supposed to be locked!”

“Poker?” Fitz cried, gesticulating unnecessarily. “I don’t hardly even know her!”

He guffawed at his own joke, stolen from one of the stupid sitcoms he used to watch to perfect his accents, and ignored the irritated looks the men exchanged.

“I see y’all have an empty chair. Why don’t I take that?”

“That’s Lucky’s chair, mate.”

“Where’s Lucky?” Fitz demanded. Sometimes it was too easy -- find a mark’s friends, get them talking, and they walked the mark right to you.

“Not back yet.”

“Then I’ll sit here and keep it warm for him, how’s that? Unless I’m too hot for you.” And he pulled the wad of bills out of his pocket, tossing it carelessly onto the table.

He saw their eyes bug out a bit at the $100s easily visible there and felt a rush of power. There was a confidence in these roles that Fitz could never quite locate in his real life -- or was it his fake life?

But it was also a power and confidence he distrusted.    


They played several rounds. Fitz counted cards so that he’d win just enough but not too much to tip them off, losing enough hands and telling enough stupid self-effacing jokes to earn their laughter and a modicum of camaraderie.

Fortunately the need to go further into this particular role was negated by the very loud entrance of another man, who sent the door banging against the wall.

“Who are you?” the man snarled behind Fitz. “And what are you doing in my seat?”

“Sorry, Lucky, we tried to tell ‘im--” muttered one of the men at the table, but Lucky cut him off.

“You looking for a job or something, punk?”

Fitz calmly laid his cards on the edge of the table and slipped one hand under his jacket as if scratching an itch. “You are the job.” And he pulled the trigger.

The dendrotoxin bullet shot clean through the leather and Lucky collapsed with a thump. Before the other men had moved more than an inch out of their seats, Fitz fired again, again, and again, with impeccable precision, and they slumped forward across the table.

Pressing a button on his watch, he strode over to Lucky and nudged him with the toe of his shoes, then fired another bullet into Lucky’s chest for good measure. A beep from the watch alerted him to a transmission beginning. “Target 617 acquired, potentially valuable collateral also at the scene. Requesting pick-up. Sending my location...now.”

Before he left, he flipped over the cards of the man to whom Fitz had been about to relinquish the current round.

“Pair of bloody threes,” he muttered, tossing the cards at the man’s head.

He locked the door on the way out, leaving the unconscious bodies behind. 

  
  
  
  


Fitz nearly forgot to pick up wine on his drive back, and the store was about to close, but he darted in -- back in his sweater vest, so he looked like the sort of customer the judgy Wine & Spirits staff would approve of -- and bought the red Jemma preferred when she really wanted to get tipsy. Maybe he could convince her that tonight’s stodgy neighborhood gathering warranted such an indulgence.

Though she actually  _ enjoyed  _ these things, he thought bitterly as he watched her pull up to the curb in front of their neighbors’ house, where he’d been waiting outside for her to arrive.  _ He  _ was the one who couldn’t wait to go home.

At least he’d overcome some of the bumbling awkwardness and the persistent need to hover at Jemma’s elbow.

“Everything in order?” he called as she hurried down the driveway to meet him.

“The threat was eliminated!” she chirped. “Oh, you got the good wine -- looking forward to the party that much?”

They knocked in unison, retracting the tongues they’d stuck out at each other a second before the door opened.

“Jemma!” Elena, the matriarch of the household, cried as soon as she saw them and yanked Jemma into a hug. “How do you live down the street and yet somehow I never see you?”

“What’s up, Turbo?” Mack, Elena’s husband, chuckled as he and Fitz shook hands. Mack had assigned Fitz the nickname after Fitz had helped upgrade Mack’s 1962 Corvette -- Fitz had chalked it up to being ‘good with his hands’, as he was unable to mention the hours he spent tinkering on new S.H.I.E.L.D. tech in his secret room under the shed.

“Come in, come in,” Elena insisted, sweeping them by. Fitz helped Jemma take off her coat and handed both of their jackets to Mack before following the women out into the living room.

The place was bustling with families from the neighborhood, and despite the initial swell of anxiety at so many unfamiliar faces, Fitz couldn’t deny the particular comfort that the domesticity of it all gave him, standing there in the doorway with Jemma.

Then he saw the herd of grandmothers watching them from the armchairs by the piano. Grandmothers just  _ loved  _ pinching his cheeks and asking all sorts of unnecessary questions.

“Jemma, come help me with the watermelon!” Elena called over her shoulder as she hurried into the kitchen. Always darting about, that one.

“Don’t leave me with the hostiles,” Fitz hissed, grabbing for Jemma as she moved away, but he caught the tie on the back of her dress by accident.

“Oh, Fitz,” Jemma sighed, rolling her eyes with affectionate annoyance as the bow unraveled. “Do me up again, would you?”

She turned her back to him, and as he stepped forward to fix the tie, his hand brushed the silky fabric of her dress over her lower back and he smelled the faded citrus of the shampoo she must’ve used the night before.

His hands froze on the little strips of fabric he was supposed to be tying as he was forcibly reminded of a moment they’d shared before they’d been married, when their interactions were being monitored somewhat invasively to assess whether they were really a couple and not just marrying for a visa (though they were). Helped along by their pre-existing close friendship, they’d nonetheless come under intense scrutiny and had on more than one occasion needed to pretend to be rather... affectionate.

The moment to which he’d been thrown back now had been all sizzling air, an evening charged by thunderstorms and alcohol and dancing and a flower in Jemma’s hair--

“Fitz?” Jemma queried in the present.

He gulped and fumbled to finish tying the bow. “All set.”

“Thanks.” She turned to pat his chest lightly, apparently thinking nothing of his prolonged immobility, and followed Elena.

He drifted, a bit lost, through the living room, responding half-heartedly to Mack’s summons to join a group of couples their age.  It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself that weakness, since he’d experienced the rush of attraction he’d so often had to tamp down in the early days of their friendship and, later, their marriage.

He thought he’d gotten over it.

“Turbo, you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m just naturally this pale,” he joked faintly.

“Well, that’s the truth,” Mack chuckled. “Come on, we’re playing couples charades as soon as Elena and Jemma are back -- you and the lady wanna join?”

Fitz and Jemma had never  _ technically  _ told Mack and Elena, or anyone in the neighborhood, actually, that they weren’t a couple in the traditional sense. At the beginning it had seemed too risky, given Jemma’s previously precarious immigration status, and then it became unnecessary, or irrelevant, or too complicated to explain.

“Yeah, alright,” Fitz answered simply.

“Ooh, I love charades!” Jemma gushed, swooping onto the arm of the couch next to Fitz.

“You should see her play pictionary, though,” Fitz stage-whispered. “Everything looks like a dung beetle with an attitude problem.”

“That’s a surprisingly common prompt,” Jemma replied coolly, though she jostled Fitz aggressively with her elbow.

“Why don’t you kids go first, then, since you’re so smooth?” Elena suggested, her competitive grin making its first appearance. (It was obvious why she and Jemma were such good friends.)

“With relish!” Jemma flounced up and grabbed the first card, glowing in the spotlight as she always did. “Don’t mess this up for us, Fitz.”

The little knot in his stomach, the little flush on his chest and up his neck from the strange moment in the hall earlier, quickly vanished as they all fell about laughing at Jemma’s attempts to demonstrate what ended up being the game ‘I Spy’.

Wiping tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes and patting Jemma’s back in consolation when the timer buzzed before he got the answer, Fitz felt much better. They were best friends, that was all -- impossibly close, yes, improbably affectionate, perhaps, but certainly not more than that. Because  _ more than that  _ was, from what Fitz had always heard, messy and complicated, whereas his friendship with Jemma was simple and comfortable -- effortless, really.

Jemma drove them both home an hour and a half later, steering with one hand because she was unwilling to relinquish the tinfoil trophy Elena had crafted for them when they’d managed a come-from-behind win in the final round.

“Well, if you were knackered  _ before _ , I’d hate to think how you’re feeling now,” Jemma yawned as they trailed up the stairs together. “You were quite committed to that Tour de France bit.”

“It was worth it, wasn’t it?” he teased, trying to wrest the trophy from her. “You won in the end.”

“ _ We _ won, silly Fitz.” Still, she slipped out of his reach and danced with the trophy towards her bedroom at the opposite end of the hall from his. “Forever unvanquished.”

“Hey Jemma?” Fitz called after her.

“Yes, Fitz?”

“I liked your dress tonight,” he said quietly, ducking his head and picking at the peeling gold covering on the doorknob to his room. “It was really nice.”

“Oh,” Jemma murmured. Her face was inscrutable in the unlit hall but she sounded confused. “Thank you, Fitz.”

“Good night, Jemma.”

As he stuffed the leather jacket and gun back into the depths of his closet, he muttered to himself, “ _ Stupid stupid stupid stupid _ ...” 

  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Jemma had seven years of experience of cleanly separating her home life with Fitz from her work life, so as she waited in the office lobby for ID verification, her thoughts were on grenade launchers and recon instead of game nights and white wine spritzers.

Her retina scan, fingerprints, badge swipe, and code entry completed, the door slid open and she passed through from the innocuous lobby to the high-tech base it hid.

The CIA had been operating this base out of a New York City skyscraper for many years already when Jemma and Fitz moved to the area, but in the intervening years Jemma had not only risen through the ranks to take over as director of the base, she’d also successfully campaigned for it to be an all-female unit, the first of its kind. She wouldn’t rank her pride in that achievement above deterring global security threats and saving thousands of lives, but it came close.

“Great work last night.” Daisy, her second-in-command, fell into step with her. “I read the stats -- I think that was record speed.”

“Well, you try wearing a pleather onesie and posing as a dominatrix stripper to capture your target -- it’s rather good incentive to get the job done quickly,” Jemma explained, wrinkling her nose.

“Eh, you and I have different tastes,” Daisy chuckled.

They passed through the rows of women, all of whom looked up from their computers and greeted Jemma warmly, before passing into Jemma’s personal office. Daisy shut the door behind her and took the seat in front of Jemma’s desk.

“What’s on the docket for today?”

“A pretty big one, boss. They asked you to handle it personally. One of the CIA’s own went rogue and is selling his tech to the highest bidder -- which, at this point, happens to be S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Which in turn is now synonymous with Hydra,” Jemma finished grimly. The coup from within S.H.I.E.L.D had occurred only the week before and they’d heard nothing good since: scores of agents either joining the neo-Nazi group -- or being killed for refusing to do so.

“What’s the name of our target?”

“Franklin Hall.”

“Oh, no, Professor Hall?” Jemma gasped. “I worked with him at university. I would never have believed him capable of betrayal of this scale.”

“That’s why you pay  _ me _ to distrust everyone,” Daisy reminded her. “You’re the heart of gold with the quick trigger finger.”

“So what’s the mission?”

Daisy swiveled the tablet she was holding so Jemma could see. “There’s an exchange scheduled for this afternoon in the deep woods of upstate New York. Hall’s been working with some mercenaries, but he’s about to turn himself over to S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Hydra,” Jemma corrected again.

“Hydra, damn it,” Daisy muttered. “That’s gonna take some getting used to.”

“So our goal is...”

“You’re not gonna like it,” Daisy said grimly, watching Jemma. “This isn’t an extraction or good cop bad cop -- this needs to be quick, clean, and contained.”

“This is an assassination,” Jemma clarified. Her hands involuntarily curled into fists under the desk.

“I know you prefer ICERs, Jemma, but -- Not everything can be negotiated. This comes all the way from the top. Hall is to be taken out. That’s final.”

“Why does it sound like  _ you’re  _ the boss around here?” Jemma grumbled, but she took the tablet from Daisy and started reading the briefing. “I understood the challenges of this job when I took it. We’ll get it done. For now, can you get me--”

“Specs on the area, precipitation predictions, helicopter prepped to get you up there, 3D mapping of the terrain,” Daisy rattled off.

“You’re the best, Dais.” 

  
  
  
  


Jemma was at the rendezvous location well ahead of schedule. She walked a broad circle around the site, careful to avoid leaving footprints or even crimping leaves as she passed.

It didn’t  _ seem _ like it would be a complicated operation. She’d staked out a hunter’s stand in one of the trees from which she had an excellent vantage point of the clearing identified in intercepted S.H.I.E.L.D. transmissions. Unless they swept the place with thermal scanners before the exchange, she should easily be able to pick off Hall and slip away through the woods without a problem.

She set up cameras for surveillance, lasers which would trigger an alarm on her watch once anyone crossed a certain perimeter, and remote-operated charges. Detonation would be a last resort, if something went drastically wrong and she needed to take out the entire party -- she shuddered at the thought -- but it was standard procedure for such a mission.

Everything handled in her typical efficient fashion, she settled in the hunter’s stand with her gun on one knee and waited.

She’d been perfectly professional all morning, distracted enough by delegating and planning that she was able to sequester thoughts of anything else. But now, with nothing to do and nowhere to be, she found her thoughts drifting inexorably back to Fitz.

It wasn’t that he never touched her or complimented her. On the contrary, he was consistently pleasant, affectionate, and encouraging. But last night -- last night had felt like something different.

Bobbi wasn’t entirely wrong. Jemma supposed she was merely so used to living in the grey zone she and Fitz had inhabited since university that she thought very little of it anymore. It was inevitable, living with your best friend on whom you used to have a crush, that those feelings would surface now and again.

To everyone else it was unfathomably strange that she’d never felt the need for another man in her life. And certainly, dozens of people over the years had asked her whether she wasn’t a tad bit curious what it would be like to  _ be  _ with him.

It had always felt like they were  _ on the edge  _ of something more, from the very beginning. When they had to pretend to be a couple in love, there’d be moments he’d look at her and she would think, maybe... Well, he was just playing a part. Sometimes, though, she would wake up remembering the way he brought her tea the morning after their wedding -- she would wake up and wish he would do it again.

The odd thing was, it wasn’t even the possibility that he’d distract from her work that kept her from considering the possibility of more than friends-married-for-convenience with Fitz. She had thought about it a great deal, once -- nearly constantly -- but she could never risk bringing him into this life. If she were that close to him, kissing him, loving him, being ..  _ intimate  _ with him, she would never be able to keep the secrets necessary for her work. She wouldn’t want to.

It was hard enough with their current arrangement. She liked her work, most of the time, or at least liked what she and her team sought to protect and uphold. Years of lying to Fitz and being unable to lean on him for support when she needed it took its toll, left her exhausted and anxious.

But if he ever found out what she did for a living... She wasn’t sure he’d want to ever speak to her again.

This way, though there would always be questions and what-ifs, she was able to keep Fitz in her life. She had decided long ago that that was what mattered. That was enough.

Her watch buzzed, jolting her out of her reverie and alerting her to some activity on the perimeter. She frowned, pulling up the visuals on her computer. No sign of movement of the level to be expected from either S.H.I.E.L.D. or Dr. Hall’s party--

Out of the corner of her eye she caught the barest flash of movement. Turning slowly, still crouched, she watched a man in full camo crawling on hands and knees towards the clearing she’d been observing.

A single man. Could be a hunter -- could be a third party.

This was not a mission during which to take chances, Jemma thought grimly. Against her orders, she’d brought an ICER in addition to her rifle, and she leveled the former at the crawling man. Put him out for a few hours and he’d be none the wiser.

Her aim was impeccable, but though the man jerked backwards with the impact of the bullet into his side, rather than falling over he rose to his knees and peered in her direction.

“Bullocks,” Jemma muttered. If he was wearing a bulletproof vest, he was  _ definitely  _ a third-party operator. Or, worse, a member of Hydra sent to make sure people like her didn’t do the very thing she was trying to do.

The man rolled to the side as she aimed at him again, determined to hit him in the face this time, and when he rose up he had a  _ grenade launcher  _ pointed at her perch.

“Shit!” She grabbed everything she could and threw herself out of the tree, rolling across the ground to lessen the impact on her knees and ankles. Behind her, the tree and all her equipment burst into flames.

Her watch started buzzing again. The parties had arrived for the exchange -- and not only had she lost her direct shot, but the trigger for the charges was up in the hunter’s stand, now smoldering.

“Motherf-” Jemma pressed the button on her watch that would call for immediate extraction. There was no way she could get to Hall now, and to stay would risk exposure, identification, and death.

She was worth more alive.

Not sparing the scene another glance, she sprinted away from the clearing, narrowly avoiding a second grenade which fell just behind her. 

  
  
  
  


“Find out who he was,” she snarled as soon as the office doors opened.

“We got the video you streamed from the site, it’s being analyzed right now,” Daisy assured her. “Jesus, Jemma, you’re covered in cuts--”

“I’m fine. But we have a problem--”

“Yeah, I know,” Daisy cut her off. “HQ already called. Hydra has Dr. Hall, so now not only do we have to follow up on that, but this guy--”

“A witness, I know,” Jemma muttered.

“We don’t leave witnesses.”

“I know.”

“You said he blasted your stuff but if he’s good at what he does, he’ll be able to track the specs from your computer or the charges. And we don’t know how much he saw of your face -- what if he IDed you?”

“I _ know _ , Daisy. I understand the severity of the situation. How much time did they give us?”

“48 hours. After that -- they take over the mission and the unit, you get kicked down to a desk job in DC.”

Jemma nodded, twisting her fingers in an old nervous tic. “Shit, Daisy.  _ Shit. _ ”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. It’s fine. This is fine. I’ll--” She had  _ never  _ botched a mission before. Not since... -- But in truth, it wasn’t her, was it? It was that meddling arsehole who dropped in on her operation and pulled out a  _ grenade launcher _ \-- what kind of operative used such an imprecise weapon anyway? “Let’s find this bastard.”

She pushed aside Daisy’s repeated attempts to have someone look at the bloody cuts on Jemma’s hands and face and settled among the other agents in the main office space, scrolling through the video recording from the site. Their programs were running facial recognition scans and analyzing chatter on the intelligence communications channels, but sometimes what was needed in these situations was a human touch...

She rewound the video to the moment the man appeared on screen. It was a full minute or so before she had noticed him, so perhaps there was something in those sixty seconds that would give her a hint. Something, anything, to work with.

Sixty seconds weren’t necessary. It took her five.

Right before he got to the ground and started crawling, the man stood still for a heartbeat and put his hands on his hips, or more on his lower back, rather.

Jemma gasped and knocked over her mug of tea as she scrambled to rewind it again.

“What’d you see?” Daisy demanded, rushing to her side.

Jemma pressed a trembling hand over her mouth as she replayed the beginning five seconds over and over and over again.

“Jemma, what is it?”

“That’s--” Realizing the entire unit was staring at her, Jemma lowered her voice and motioned for Daisy to lean closer. “Daisy, that’s Fitz.  _ My  _ Fitz.”

“How can you be s--”

“I would recognize that posture, that stance, anywhere. It’s  _ him _ .”

“No freaking way,” Daisy whispered. “What does this mean?”

“He could be S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Jemma blurted out.

“No, babe. He could be  _ Hydra _ .”

Jemma met Daisy’s firm gaze and shook her head, opening her mouth to fight that, to fight the idea that  _ Fitz _ , this-sundae-needs-more-hot-fudge Fitz, could be Hydra.

But she was cut off by Kara, the agent who posed as the receptionist in the outer office, calling from the front door, “Agent Simmons, your husband is on the phone. He wants to know what time to be home for dinner.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Janelle for keeping me from getting too explicit too soon XD You know what I mean.


	4. Chapter 4

Fitz stood in the driveway for a solid five minutes after he’d put his car in the garage, not even bothering to turn his collar up against the rain.

He’d run every possible scenario in his head. He’d analyzed it all -- analyzed it beyond the point of reasonable analysis. There was nothing for it.

The computer he’d found in the woods after the target, Hydra, and Dr. Hall’s assorted mercenaries had vacated the site had left no room for misinterpretation.

Though now a highly trained and skilled field agent, Fitz had first been hired to S.H.I.E.L.D. for his technical prowess. So he had taken this computer apart personally. The major components of the device were CIA-issue, even a S.H.I.E.L.D. lab rat would be able to see that, but some aspects had been designed to the specificities of a particular user or group.

He had traced the designs, easily side-stepping the CIA’s frankly pathetic firewalls to identify their manufacturers and trace requisitions, invoices, and deliveries.

The custom components in the computer led to, of all places, Jemma’s work address.

He could see her, faintly, through the sheets of rain. She was moving around the kitchen, dancing a little -- she probably had on that classic rock station she got so into after they watched  _ Pirate Radio _ .

It would’ve been enough to send his world reeling off its typical axis, just discovering that Jemma -- his best friend of ten years, his green-card-wife of seven -- was CIA.

But with Hydra in the mix, he couldn’t be sure she wasn’t something much, much worse than just a professional liar like himself.

Half of his teammates were dead or traitors. The thought of Hydra made his fingers tighten around the handle of his briefcase. The thought of Jemma being Hydra -- it made him want to vomit.

He knew he should leave then, go track down the few people he knew he could trust and start a new cover without a word to Jemma.

But his entire life, whether real or fake he still wasn’t sure, was in that house, in that kitchen.

So he pulled his ICER from the back of his waistband, slid it into the deep pocket of his coat, and made a dash for the door.

“Jemma?” he called cautiously from the hallway.

“Where have you been?” she demanded, popping into the doorframe with frightening quickness. His hand tensed around the gun in his pocket, but she was wearing a purple apron and giant red oven mitts and he felt instantly ridiculous.

He slowly stretched his fingers. “You said to be here by seven.”

“And it’s seven-fifteen! The potatoes are already practically burnt--”

“You could’ve taken them out of the oven,” Fitz said, slipping his coat off and hanging it on a hook in the hall. He couldn’t quite meet her gaze.

“And risk them getting cold by the time you managed to get home? Preposterous. It’s like you have it out for me.”

He faltered and his breath stuttered in his chest. “Yeah, preposterous.”

She shot him a look over her shoulder and stripped off the gloves, ushering him towards the table. “You can start serving while I get the wine. How was your day?”

“Uneventful,” he responded automatically.

“Seven years of uneventful,” she tutted. “That’s an awfully long time to stay with a job you find so distasteful.”

_ She knows _ , he thought, the certainty of it chilling him to the bone. Just as he had connected her with the mystery agent in the woods, she somehow knew his identity.

_ This is the beginning of the end.  _ Jemma smiled at him, a tight-lipped tug at her cheeks that extended no warmth into her eyes, and drifted towards the table with two wine glasses tucked elegantly between her fingers.  _ Or is it the end of the beginning? _

“You’re wearing makeup,” he blurted out as she rounded the table.

Jemma nearly knocked over the glass she’d been setting down. “I didn’t think you’d notice,” she murmured, brushing self-consciously at her cheek with the back of her knuckles. “I stopped by the mall and got one of those free make-overs.”

He hummed, but underneath her cover-up he detected what looked quite like scratches one might obtain after hurling oneself out of a tree to avoid a grenade.

_ Fuck _ . He’d fired a  _ grenade _ at Jemma.

Hydra or not, the thought still made his hands shake. He hid them under the table.

“How was your day, then?” he asked, physically straining to keep his voice steady.

“Oh, you know,” she sighed. She untied her apron and threw it on the counter before pulling the stopper out of the wine bottle. “Everything that could go wrong did.”

“I can imagine,” he muttered.

She smiled again and held his full glass out to him. “Cheers.”

And then, as he reached for the stem, their eyes met and Fitz’s chest heaved with  _ something  _ he saw in her gaze.

Jemma dropped the glass.

And Fitz caught it.

Those were  _ not  _ the reflexes of a construction contractor.

She knew. And not only did she know, she knew that he knew.

A breath too late, he retracted his fingers and let the glass fall to the floor, spilling red wine all over the carpet.

“Shit,” he said without a trace of urgency.

“I’ll get it,” Jemma gasped, and they bumped into each other as Fitz rose and Jemma darted for the bathroom. “Sorry--”

As soon as she was out of sight, Fitz ran to the front hall and pulled the ICER out of his jacket pocket. He didn’t know what he was going to do -- he didn’t know what  _ she  _ was going to do -- but he’d rather paralyze first, determine allegiances second.

“Jemma?” he called, just as before. He ghosted along the wall, walking sideways with one foot in front of the other, his gun steadied on his left hand. His entire body was thrumming with anger and tension and fear -- but he had his orders.

He heard the back door yanked open and the rush of rain that followed.

“Jemma!” he shouted, sprinting towards it, never lowering his gun.

He saw her run across the lawn and leap over the little decorative wall that separated the garden from the driveway. Ignoring the pelting raindrops, he pursued her, skidding into the driveway just as her car pulled out of the garage.

“Jemma, I just want to talk!” he bellowed. He had to shield his eyes against the headlights and stumbled back slightly as she continued inching the car forward towards him.

“ _ Move _ , Fitz!” He could just hear her voice over the downpour and he wished he could see her face, could read what was happening there -- maybe it didn’t have to end this way--

“I’m not leaving, Jemma. You’ll have to run me over!”

The engine revved and the car jerked forward. Fitz yelped and threw himself up onto the hood, rolling up it to lessen the brunt of the impact.

It still bloody hurt.    


“What the hell!” he shouted, smacking the glass. This close he could see her face, dashed over with the rippling water down the windshield so that it looked like she was drowning. “Jemma, this isn’t funny -- just get out and--”

She jolted the car forward again and he tumbled off onto the pavement with a grunt. Aching all over, he looked up to see the front bumper of the car bearing down on him.

He hurled himself to the side, jumping straight into the prickly shrubs lining the driveway.

With the bloody ICER he couldn’t even shoot her tires. He swore blue murder as Jemma drove away.   
  
  
  


“What happened to you?” Hunter asked as soon as he opened the door to find Fitz standing there, drenched and covered in cuts and bruises.

“My wife,” Fitz ground out, brushing past his friend into his house -- well, his mother’s house, but that was a touchy subject. “She tried to kill me!”

“They do that, you know,” Hunter sighed, shutting the door and following Fitz into the living room. “My ex--”

“Hellbeast, yeah,” Fitz muttered. “Well, I think I might have you beat now. Jemma’s CIA. Or Hydra. Or -- I don’t even know.”

“Shite. Let’s have some whiskey.” 

“Cheers.”

“How’d she try to off you, use you as a punching bag?” Hunter demanded as he poured them each a healthy glass.

“I bruise like a fucking peach, alright?” Fitz examined the marks all over his arms. “Tried to run me over.”

“That doesn’t sound very CIA, mate.”

“Yeah, more Hydra style, you think?” Fitz said bitterly. “Bloody hell, Hunter, I’ve been such an arsehat of a fool. Not just believing her lies all these years--”

“To be fair, you were lying too--”

“But to think there were moments -- long, long moments -- when I thought she and I -- when I thought we--”

“Best drink that before you say anything you’ll regret,” Hunter cut him off grimly, shoving the whiskey into his hand.

Fitz threw back half of the glass in one swallow. It burned enough to make him cough, but that was what he needed right now: a sharp, painful dose of reality.

“You’ll get through this, mate, and you’ll come out better on the other side, like I did after my divorce.”

“Hunter, you haven’t had a contract with S.H.I.E.L.D. in six months. And you’re always wearing those -- those --” He gestured to the green velour tracksuit Hunter had on. “Those weird get-ups.  _ And  _ you live with your mum!”

“Oi!” Hunter exclaimed, jabbing Fitz sharply in the chest. “I live with my sainted mother because she’s the only woman I’ve ever trusted! Bet that’s looking a lot better to you now, eh?”

Fitz sat heavily in the nearest chair as the immensity of the day finally hit him -- not even the whiskey fogging up his brain could fight that.

“So Jemma’s a spy.” Hunter leaned against the arm of the couch and shrugged. “So what? So you can finally let go of the idea of dating the bird, you can move on with your life--”

“No, Hunter, you’re not following,” Fitz sighed. He rubbed two fingers across his closed eyes, drawing them together to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Jemma’s ID-ed me. She knows I’m S.H.I.E.L.D. And if her behavior tonight is any indication, she’s under the same orders I am.”

“Eliminate the threat,” Hunter murmured.

“Yeah.”

“You prepared to do that?”

Fitz opened his mouth, fiery affirmative retort all prepared, and found the words turned bitter and ashy on his tongue. “I don’t know,” he admitted, head drooping forward. “Jemma -- whoever she is, whatever she’s done -- I don’t think that’s something I can even consider.”

A heavy silence hung in the stodgy living room, the conversation a sharp contrast to the lace doilies and the cabinet full of flowery china.

“Well, I can’t help with that,” Hunter finally said quietly. “But you’re welcome to crash on the sofa and drink all my alcohol as long as you need.”

“Thanks.”

They clinked glasses and set about emptying the whiskey bottle. 

  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Jemma groaned, smushing her face further into the pillow.

“Aww, too loud for you?”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she snapped at Daisy, who was hovering nearby with, indeed, a gleeful grin.

“It’s not every day your boss and best friend calls you into work early to save her from the Hangover from Hell.”

“Well, it’s been a crap week,” Jemma muttered. She flipped sullenly onto her back and stared at the ceiling, purposefully  _ not _ wincing at the sunlight.

“You could’ve crashed with me instead of slumming it on your office couch,” Daisy chuckled. “Things aren’t  _ that _ bad.”

“If Fitz is Hydra, he’d track me down.” Uttering the words she’d spent the whole night drinking to avoid brought on a nausea that had nothing to do with alcohol. “He’d find me, he’d find you, he’d -- I don’t even know what he’d do.” She let her head loll to the side to look at Daisy and said quietly, “I wasn’t going to drag you into that. This seemed like the only safe place.”

Daisy sighed and set the water she’d been trying to force on Jemma onto the desk. She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the couch, tenderly stroking back Jemma’s hair. “Hey, kid, I know it feels like your life is going to hell right now, but there’s an upside.” 

“There is?” Jemma grumbled.

“Yeah. At least you don’t love him.”

Jemma’s chin startled to tremble, and she covered her eyes with one hand as if to hold the tears in or keep the pain out.

“ _ No,  _ Jemma,” Daisy gasped, grabbing her wrist. “We are  _ not _ doing this. He is  _ not  _ the Fitz you thought you knew. This is a guy who’s been lying to you for  _ years _ . There’s, like, an 80% chance he’s Hydra. If you don’t take him out first, he will kill you.” 

“This is our first fight,” Jemma whispered.

“Oh, for fuck’s--” Daisy reeled herself in with a steadying breath and said evenly, “If it would be better, I’ll do it for you. I’d rather you spend a lifetime hating me than hating yourself.”

“No, I can’t ask you to do that--”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering.”

“Thank you, Dais,” Jemma said earnestly. “I’ll let you know if I change my mind. For now... can you give me a chance to handle it my way?”

“You’re the boss,” Daisy sighed. “But if he tries to take a shot at you, I’m taking him out.” She patted Jemma on the head like a dog and stood. “The ladies will be here in half an hour. You might wanna shower -- and in the name of all things holy,  _ please _ brush your teeth.”   
  
  
  


“How do you even know he’ll come?” Kara asked, anxiously tapping her pen against her knee as they all watched the monitors.

“My car is out front for anyone to see,” Jemma murmured. “He’ll track it; he’ll follow me. He’ll come.”

She could feel, more than see, Daisy exchange a look with Kara and a few of the other women, but she ignored them. Seven years of solid leadership had earned silent compliance even when they were all chomping at the bit to take action.

“Agent Simmons! We have a heat signature in Elevator 3.”

“Get me the feed.” Jemma rushed to Alisha’s side, just barely holding herself back from grabbing the keyboard away from her.

With a few taps, Alisha opened the video monitoring the elevators. Sure enough, there in Elevator 3 was Fitz, looking as bad as she felt and wearing, of all things, a horrible velour tracksuit.

“Alright, show time, people,” Jemma called. “Everyone quiet. Raina--?”

A second later the elevator came to a shuddering stop. They watched as Fitz looked at the control panel, confused, and jabbed the button for their floor several times.

Jemma knelt next to Alisha’s desk and dragged the old-fashioned sports announcer microphone towards her. She hesitated, finger on the button.

“You got this,” Daisy whispered behind her.

Jemma nodded once and turned the microphone on.

“Hi, Fitz.”

His head jerked up and he looked around, as if to find her there in the elevator with him.

God, he looked small on that screen.

“Jemma, what’re you--” His eyes had found the camera mounted in the corner by the ceiling and he strode towards it, gazing up. It was fortunate the video feed came through in black and white or Jemma was sure the blue of his irises would make her nauseous. “What are you doing?”

“I’m giving you a choice, Fitz. A chance. Leave now, and no one has to die.”

“Jemma, that’s not--” He shook his head and looked to the ground, hands on his hips. “It doesn’t have to be like that. I don’t care about all the other stuff -- I had time to be angry, I needed to be but now -- I wish we could just...talk. There’s a way we can do this where we don’t have to lose each other. After all, I’m still just Fitz.”

  
“No, you’re not,” Jemma laughed bitterly. “You’re no more  _ just Fitz _ than I’m  _ just Jemma _ . We haven’t been for years. This isn’t -- this isn’t salvageable. I don’t know you.”

She could see him close his eyes, squeeze them shut tightly in a grimace.

“You know my orders. But if you promise me now that you’ll leave -- not just New York, but the country -- leave and change your name and give up spying... Find a beach somewhere. Spend your days sipping margaritas. You always loved margaritas... or your cover did, or whatever. Promise me that you’ll leave.”

“I can’t do that, Jemma--”

“Fitz, you have to. Or we’ll blow the charges on the elevator cables and you’ll plummet to certain death.”

She was pleading. She couldn’t put it properly in her voice, not with all these witnesses, but she  _ needed  _ him to nod and say yes and hit the button down to the lobby and walk out of her life. Rather than exploding out of it.

He was staring at the floor again. His hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He scuffed the tiles with the toe of his trainers.

The moment extended forever.

Then he looked up at the camera, face raw.

“Then do it.”

“What?” she choked out.

“Do it. If you really believe the only way out of this is to kill me, then blow the charges.”

He was bluffing, that much was obvious. He’d see how far he could push her, and then at the last minute he would capitulate and promise to do whatever she wanted.

“Okay then,” she said as breezily as she could manage. “On my countdown then. Three... Any last words?”

“Only if you let me say them to your face.”

“Two...Any regrets?”

“A million.”

“One...This is your last--”

But she never got to say  _ chance _ . They heard a  _ boom _ and then the video feed went all fuzzy.

“What happened?” Jemma gasped, scrambling to her feet. “What did you--”

“You counted down,” Daisy said weakly as she stepped back from the computer where she’d entered the code to set off the charges. “I thought that was the signal.”

“I was bluffing!” Jemma exclaimed. “ _ He  _ was bluffing, we-- Oh  _ god _ , Fitz--”

She sprinted for the exit, for the hallway, for the elevators, but Daisy caught her around the waist and pulled her back, holding her as she cried. 

  
  
  
  


Jemma didn’t wear her black dress because she was in mourning. One didn’t mourn one’s ex-best-friend and husband who was really an enemy spy. Even if one was responsible for said ex-best-friend’s death.

No, she wore her black dress to forget all that. She went to the restaurant to get irresponsibly drunk on over-priced champagne and maybe dance with a few strangers and then go home -- to her giant, empty, Fitz-less house in the suburbs -- and sleep until it was a reasonable hour to start drinking again.

It might’ve helped if she had chosen a restaurant other than the one Fitz always took her for their fake-iversary, as he called it.

She ran a finger along the rim of her empty glass. There would be all sorts of commendations and ceremonies, she was sure: successful removal of a high-ranking enemy agent. She could only assume Fitz had been high-ranking. He was too intelligent to not have risen as quickly as she had.

Would it be treason to stand next to the Director and receive her medal and possibly a promotion and all the while be thinking of Fitz?

A waiter was hovering at her elbow, she realized. She cleared her throat and swiped at the tear burning down her cheek.

“More champagne, madame?”

Her finger stopped its revolution on the glass at once. Every biological function in her body, down to the cellular level, seemed to freeze.

She turned slowly in her seat, already reaching for the gun strapped to her upper thigh.

There, in a crisp tux, a white towel draped over his arm and a bottle in his hand, not a scratch on him but sporting an obnoxiously self-satisfied grin, was Fitz. 

  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, this is the most M-rated chapter ( ;) ;) ;) ) so proceed with caution if that's not your thing.

Fitz tugged his tuxedo trousers up a bit as he sat down opposite Jemma, feeling frankly like a goddamn casanova. He knew he looked dashing, if Jemma’s wide eyes and struggle to breathe were any indication. (Had he ever had that effect on her before? Had he been blind for years to a mutual attraction? Of course it would surface at the most inconvenient time.)  _ She  _ certainly looked beautiful, despite -- or perhaps, because of -- the tears clinging to her mascaraed eyelashes and the contrast of her black dress to her pale skin. If he ignored the circumstances enough, he could imagine they were a regular married couple out for their anniversary, sharing a bottle of champagne they couldn’t really afford.

“How are you alive?” Jemma demanded through gritted teeth.

Ah. Perhaps he  _ had  _ misinterpreted her reaction to his appearance.

He could see that her hand hovered just below the table and her entire right arm was tensed. She was no doubt aiming a pistol straight at him -- though from that angle, she’d be most likely to hit his genitals. He winced and crossed his legs self-consciously.

“I thought you’d be happier to see me.” He cocked his ICER under the table. Despite having no real intentions to use it, if Jemma showed signs of pulling the trigger, he would not hesitate to knock her out to save his own life.

“I was the one trying to kill you, or have you forgotten?”

Fitz shrugged, slightly enjoying his rare position of power over Jemma. She was desperately curious and bloody furious, and that would make her vulnerable and sloppy. He loosened his tie a bit and didn’t miss the way her eyes drifted to watch his finger’s actions. “Forgive and move on, live and let live, and all that.”

“When it comes to secret agents, I believe that aphorism has been amended to ‘live and let die,’” Jemma said coolly. “How did you do it? I saw you in that elevator.”

“It’s remarkably easy to tap into a video feed and replace it with another. Likewise, building a replica elevator and fooling a heat sensor are both child’s play to anyone with a day’s experience at S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“At Hydra,” Jemma corrected him bitterly. Over the string music wafting through the ballroom, he heard her click the safety off on her weapon.

“I’m not Hydra,” he sighed. “I’m not leaving until you accept that.”

“And I know that you’re lying, and if you don’t leave I  _ will  _ kill you, properly this time.” Jemma shifted forward a fraction, leaning her free elbow on the table so that her pale, freckle-dotted cleavage was ever so slightly exposed.  _ Unfair, Simmons. That’s dirty play.  _ “So we appear to have reached an impasse.”

“A lover’s quarrel, if you will. A marital spat.” Heck, if she didn’t return his feelings and he bared his soul for nothing, at least he could fake his death again and disappear forever. Most spurned lovers only  _ dreamed _ of such drastic measures.

“Can I interest either of you in dessert?” A waiter had appeared beside their table, and Fitz was reminded abruptly that there were other people in the room than just he and Jemma.

Without breaking Jemma’s gaze, he replied, “Actually, we were about to go dance.”

“We were not,” Jemma snapped.

“Jemma.” He stood, the waiter scurrying away as he moved around the table and extended a hands towards her. “Dance with me.”

He knew he was bringing more of his in-the-field personality, more of his job, into their relationship than was strictly ideal, but that line was already blurred. The surreality of this entire situation was making him brash. And if Jemma’s alter ego was anything like the side of her he knew, she would find a direct command more compelling... and perhaps more intriguing as well.

“You don’t dance,” Jemma accused.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He was mostly bluffing -- he’d taken a few lessons many years ago, for a mission that involved a middle-aged Argentine cougar who frequented the Latin dance halls -- but he remembered that the tango involved a lot of being pressed up against your partner with your hands dangerously close to intimate places.

The corner of Jemma’s mouth quirked up and her eyes settled into that scathing expression he’d mostly avoided since uni, but she draped her hand over his and let him guide her onto the dance floor.

Behind him, her fingers slipped into the back of his waistband, searching for weapons hidden there, so he yanked her around and pulled her flush to him. She gasped slightly and glanced quickly away as he studied her face, inches from his. “Hand on my shoulder, Jem. You’re not leading.”

“Step on my feet three times, and we switch roles,” she muttered.

He moved her backwards, stepping sharply but smoothly in time to the music. He’d caught her off guard, and only his hand pressed to the small of her back -- his thumb brushed her bare skin where the dress dipped low -- kept her from falling.

“Do you expect our story to have a happy ending?” he murmured, watching the orchestra over her shoulder.

“Happy endings are for stories that haven’t finished yet. As I see it, we are quite done.”

They’d nearly run into the tables at the edge of the floor, so he pivoted them, Jemma’s hair fanning out prettily behind her. Overcome by the urge to make it do that again, Fitz dipped her, his arms and abs straining to support her.

But rather than bring her all the way around and back up against him, he held her there, her torso horizontal below him, their hips still pressed together.

He released the hand which had been holding hers out to the side and ran it down her back, stopping just short of her bum and instead tracing over her hip. The high slit of her dress parted near the top of her leg and he trailed his fingers down to where she had several knives strapped around her thigh.

“Satisfied?” she hissed as he pulled the knives out one by one and slid them across the ground under the tables.

“Not nearly,” he whispered, but he helped her back to standing so that their chests heaved against each other.

Jemma slid her hands under his tuxedo jacket and over his pressed white shirt until she located the guns and extra cartridges tucked into his belt. She pulled them out less gently than Fitz would’ve liked and deposited them on a passing cart of soiled dishes.

“If you’re finished--” Fitz tugged her back to him once more, stepping slightly between her legs so that the slit on her dress stayed permanently open and her bare thigh pressed against his trousers.

“Do you _really_ think it could’ve gone differently?” Jemma asked almost lazily next to his ear, her fingertips digging into his shoulder. “You and I?”

“What do you care?” Fitz murmured, stopping their progress across the dance floor and leaning towards her so that their faces, their lips, were just centimeters apart. He didn’t try to keep his eyes from flicking downwards. “If I was just a cover.”

“Who said you were just a cover?” Jemma whispered.

“Wasn’t I?”

Jemma paled, dropped his hand, and stepped back. “I have to--” She glanced around with the fragility in her face which Fitz knew preceded tears. “Excuse me.”

And she darted away through the crowd.

Fitz sighed and buttoned his tuxedo jacket. He knew, rationally, that he shouldn’t follow Jemma. She still seemed to believe he was Hydra, and despite the cracks in her resolve she still seemed set on assassinating him. And if he followed her, he’d certainly be walking into a trap.

He would not abandon his life. He would not leave Jemma. He would either die at her hand, or he would convince her of his allegiance. 

  
  
  
  


Fitz climbed the trellis on the side of their house and eased open the window to his bedroom. He’d seen Jemma from the driveway, stalking the first floor of the house with a shotgun.

Bloody hell, he’d misestimated when he’d faked his death. The woman was  _ pissed _ .

The tuxedo was maddeningly uncomfortable but there was no time to change, unless he wanted to be shot in his pants, so he shucked off the jacket and his shoes. With an ICER from his sock drawer, he stalked along the upstairs hallway and carefully descended the stairs, ready to throw himself over the bannister at the first tick of a trigger.

At the entrance to the living room he paused. He took a framed photograph of the two of them from one of their rare vacations and slowly eased it out around the edge of the doorway, tilting it like a mirror.

He caught a flash of Jemma, perched on top of the dining room table, a millisecond before a blast exploded through the wall a foot behind Fitz’s head.

Not waiting for the follow-up shots, he rolled back along the hallway and clambered to his feet. Whatever his reservations about hurting Jemma, he needed to get a clean shot at her -- get her sedated, get her tied up somewhere, and talk sense into her.

_ I sound absolutely mad _ , he thought dazedly.  _ No wonder she thinks I’m Hydra _ .

He could hear Jemma’s dress swishing, which was all the advantage he had to work with. He flung himself across the doorway to the kitchen, sliding on his knees and shooting wildly towards the source of the explosions that followed his path. Once blocked by the island in the middle of the room, he scrambled towards its protection. Jemma had switched guns --  _ a machine gun, really? A bit overkill, wasn’t it? _ \-- and incessant bullets hammered the refrigerator door and sent bursts of apple and orange from the fruit basket spraying across the counter.

As he lay panting against the lower cabinets, he couldn’t help be impressed by her marksmanship. Of course she hadn’t hit him yet, but he was fairly certain that wasn’t her intention. She was herding him, getting close enough to a hit to scare him. 

Which meant there was hope.

When her next round came, he was ready. He held up the severed tube for their gas stove and ducked as a fireball furled outwards. It died quickly, as everything in the kitchen was granite and tile, but he was able to round the island and catch Jemma with a knee in the stomach as she rose from where the explosion had thrown her.

Weapons abandoned, they fought hand-to-hand across the room, fists connecting with walls as often as with faces. Fitz caught a powerful blow to his right cheek and flew across the room, breaking several dining chairs in his trajectory. Jemma grabbed for her gun where it lay near him but he kicked it out of her hands. He suffered a headbutt for that one.

She was far too skilled. He wanted to lay there, to let her slap and scratch and damage him as she needed to, but unless he resisted he’d be unconscious in under a minute and dead shortly thereafter.

The ICER was on the other side of the room, just under the china cabinet. Jemma must’ve seen his eyes flick that way because she threw him off and flung herself towards the kitchen and her own gun.

They came up at the same moment, panting, guns leveled. Jemma had bruises all up her arms and Fitz could feel hot blood trickling from a cut under his eye. For a beat they stared at each other, stared into the barrels of each other’s guns.

And then Fitz lowered his weapon. “I can’t.”

“Come on!” Jemma cried shrilly, stepping towards him, shoving his shoulder. “Come  _ on! _ ”

“No,” he said firmly, and he dropped the gun to the floorboards.

Jemma stooped for it immediately, searching for it blindly as she kept her gun trained on his chest and her eyes on his face. Once she’d located it, she took a step back from him and glanced down. She blanched.

“Dendrotoxin?” she whispered.

For the first time in the days since she’d decided he was Hydra, Fitz could see her assuredness waver. She stood with her real gun with real bullets in one hand and his non-lethal ICER in the other, and he knew it had suddenly become that much more difficult to believe that he was any more Hydra than she was.

Her chin trembled before she shook her head almost imperceptibly and threw the ICER aside. “I have my orders.” 

“So do I,” Fitz replied calmly.

“Then why were you using dendrotoxin?” Jemma demanded. “I could’ve killed you a dozen times, and you’d have merely sent me to sleep for a bit.”

Fitz’s heart wrenched at her persistent misunderstanding. With a light, painful fluttering in his lungs, he breathed, “Killing you was never an option, whatever my orders.”

That was too far, too honest, for Jemma, and she seemed to snap. She pushed him backwards until his legs hit the only unbroken dining room chair and he sat down slowly, eyeing the gun aimed between his eyes.

“Who are you?” Jemma cried.

“Leopold Fitz, construction contractor,” Fitz said calmly.

“What do you really do for a living?” Jemma asked, tears in her eyes.

“Jemma, I’m a contractor.”

“But what do you really do?” she repeated furiously.

Fitz sighed and rubbed at his forehead, where a headache was rapidly developing. “I’m a spy, okay? Same as you.”

Jemma released a panting breath. She’d known -- they’d all but shouted it to the world at this point -- but to hear him say it seemed to physically pain her.

“Why did you marry me?” Jemma demanded.

“Because you needed help!” Fitz threw his hands up in exasperation.

“Then why did you  _ stay  _ married to me?”

“Because you’re my friend!”

Jemma stepped towards him, leveling her gun at his face. “Why didn’t you flee, or take me out, or  _ something _ , when you had the chance?”

“Because I’m in  _ love  _ with you!” Fitz exploded.

There was a second of suffocating silence, and then the gun was clattering on the floor and Jemma had launched herself at him, scrambling onto his lap as her fingers latched into his hair, her nails digging into his scalp, her lips devouring every inch of his face she could reach.

The force of their collision sent the chair tipping backwards, threatening to crack Fitz’s skull open on the floor, so he rolled them both sideways, landing instead with his arm cushioning Jemma’s head.

He continued to roll until he was on top of her. He pulled back so that her lips and hands fell away and she lay on the ground below him, mouth slightly ajar, eyelashes fluttering.

He reached to brush away a strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead. Jemma’s eyes closed under his touch. The temptation was too great and he rocked his body slowly against hers, just barely grazing their centers together.

He propped himself above her head in a push-up position, arms trembling as he lowered himself so that he could whisper, his lips leaving wet tracks across her ear, “Do you want to continue that line of questioning, Mrs. Fitz?”

She didn’t answer, so he slid one hand down her waist and just under her arse, then up the backside of her thigh. When he reached the smooth underside of her knee he pulled it up next to his hip, pressing his already-hard length against her heat, making her gasp and him grunt.

She let out a stuttering breath and something that sounded like, “ _ Don’t _ .”

Fitz pulled back to look at her. He could see her nipples hard through her dress and a flush creeping up her neck. She was his best friend and wife and there seemed to be some level of (apparently intense) mutual attraction and he wanted desperately,  _ finally _ , to fuck her, but there were still lines and limits.

He dropped his forehead to hers. “Jemma,” he murmured, the m’s of her name breaking under his gravelly accent, “if you want me to stop, all you’ve to do is say so.”

He lifted his hips away from her to show her he was serious, that he wasn’t just saying it to say it, but her hands flew to his sides to hold him there and when her eyes flickered open they were dark and fierce as he had never seen them.

“Don’t you  _ dare  _ stop, Leo Fitz,” she breathed.

It was all the permission he needed. He plunged towards her, grabbing her face with his hands as she did the same, and finally kissed her properly. She brought her other leg up around him so she was dangling off of him like a sloth but it wasn’t a sustainable position so he pushed himself up with one arm and pulled her to his chest with the other, settling with his legs stretched out and Jemma cradled in his lap. She wrapped her legs snugly around his waist.

They stayed like that for a long few minutes, the only sounds in the apartment their labored breathing and the desperate collisions of their lips. Fitz couldn’t explore enough of Jemma with his mouth, so while she bit his tongue and then kissed him with aching tenderness, he let his hands rove over her shoulders, her spine, the jut of her hips, the slight swell of her stomach, the roughness of her elbows as he tracked up to where her hands still clutched his face.

He covered her hands with his and dragged them behind his head. She leaned back to look at him, her eyes hooded, and the way she ducked her head was such a strange contrast to her previous ferocity that he realized that she actually felt vulnerable before him.

If she could only know the way she’d destroyed him, incrementally but never enough to warrant action, for the past ten years. If only she could feel the terror consuming him at that moment, the confusion and worry but oh  _ god  _ the desire. If only she could know that as often as he had dreamed of kissing her, he had dreamt of just holding her, waking up beside her on a lazy Sunday morning, snuggling deeper into covers with her as they ignored all obligations in favor of just being together.

He didn’t trust himself to say any of that, so he brought one of her hands back around and placed it over his hammering heart. Her eyes followed his movement, then darted back up to his face.

“Don’t break me, Jemma Simmons,” he murmured, his voice wavering with everything he felt.

She leaned in slowly, her breath tickling his cheek for full seconds before she kissed just beneath his eye. She slid the hand on his chest up and around his head, tilting him back so she could better kiss his forehead, his nose, his earlobe, his eyelid. Every kiss was somewhere between reverence and longing -- the kisses were for him, but also so much for her.

She let her lips drag across his stubble, a sensation which made him shiver in her arms. With her lips just touching his, she whispered, “Fitz, we have a problem.”

That was  _ not  _ what he’d been expecting. “Er -- do we have to talk about it now?”

She nodded her head urgently, each motion bumping her nose against his.

He tightened his grip on her hips and said grimly, “What is it?”

“You see, I’m married...” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and she was still so close that he could  _ feel  _ it stirring the air against his mouth.

“Are you?” he panted. “Funny, me too.”

“And I know for some people that’s not a problem but...” Her hand pushed upwards into his hair. “I’ve realized I’m -- I’m rather in love with my husband.”

In a single movement he stood, carrying her with him, and pressed her against the wall of the hallway, a little more roughly than he’d intended.

“Maybe we should invite him along,” he murmured into her neck, rutting involuntarily against her as one of her hands gripped his bicep.

“Oh, Fitz,” she gasped, her head dropping back against the wall. “I didn’t know you were into that.”

“Jemma,” he groaned, this time from frustration rather than lust, “I’d really like to make love to my wife, so can you let me know when you’re done talking nonsense?”

She laughed and dragged his face up to hers. “I’m done, I’m done,” she murmured before pulling him in for another searing kiss. 

  
  
  
  


Fitz had never been particularly sexually active at university. Not that he was opposed to the concept of the activity, but he felt he’d need to know and trust someone completely before he’d let them see any part of him naked -- and the only person who ever fulfilled that requirement had been Jemma.

Who currently had her legs tight around his waist and kept rubbing up against him as best as she could, considering he had her up against the wall.

Being married to Jemma for seven years meant that he’d not kissed anyone, let alone had sex with anyone, for that long. And as far as he knew, the same was true for Jemma. They could have easily agreed upon seeing other people -- their marriage had been a sham, or at least he’d thought it was -- but for some reason it had never come up.

So the fire coursing achingly through every part of his body -- and especially through  _ certain  _ parts of his body -- was tempered by a recognition that this might  _ not  _ be the best sex either of them had had and that for Jemma it could even be quite painful.

She seemed to have no such reservations, taking his momentary hesitation as an opportunity and pushing him away so that she could set her feet back on the ground and shove him down the hallway. Halfway to the stairs she seemed to reconsider whatever plan she’d concocted and instead forced  _ him  _ against the wall, his back to her.

“Jemma,” Fitz chuckled as she pulled his collar down from behind to kiss and bite at his shoulders, “there’s not much you can do from back there.”

“I can think of a few things,” she whispered right behind his ear, trailing her fingers down his spine and over his arse.

He twitched with interest but damn it, he wasn’t going to have his first time with Jemma be in a position where he couldn’t see her eyes. He twisted in her arms, finding them to be annoyingly matched in strength, and captured her mouth again, walking her backwards towards the stairs.

“Do you have a condom?” Jemma mumbled against his mouth.

“Bloody hell! Oh, Christ, I’m gonna--”

“It’s okay,” she soothed, stepping back long enough to grab his hand and tug him into the bathroom. “I’ve been buying them regularly for years, just to keep up appearances.” She pulled a box out of her designated drawer and tossed the whole thing to him.

He was tempted to ravage her right there on the tiles of the bathroom floor, so grateful was he in that moment for her persistent over-preparation.

But she didn’t give him the chance, shoving him bodily out of the bathroom and stalking after him, climbing onto the second step so she could lean down to kiss him and then guiding him up the stairs that way. He hesitated at the top but she slipped a finger into his waistband and tugged him towards her room.

He’d spent so little time in Jemma’s room that it would have been painfully apparent to anyone who came around asking that they were married in name only. Somewhere between sharing an apartment at university and sharing a house as a married couple, the ease of platonic cuddling had vanished.

Jemma let go of him and in one wildly desperate -- and wantonly sexy -- motion yanked her blankets from the bed, leaving just the dark green sheets and her pillows. She sat at the edge and scooted back, eyes on his, until her back hit the headboard. Not breaking his gaze, she raised her knees slightly, rubbing her legs together and beginning to slide the straps of her dress off her shoulders.

He wasn’t about to let her have all the fun. He’d long ago abandoned any semblance of self-control so he threw the box of condoms down next to her and dove towards her.

She grinned, breathless, as he crawled up beside her, the motion pushing the hem of her dress up and up and up.

“Hi,” he whispered, when her face was within kissing distance.

“Hi,” she murmured, and she reached up to stroke along his jaw.

Settling his knee between her legs, he arched over her, cradled her face in both hands and kissed her again, kissed her deeply because he couldn’t believe this was happening, had never imagined that trying to talk her out of killing him would lead to  _ this. _

She sank back further into the pillows, tugging insistently at his shirt as they descended.

“Did you want something?” he mumbled against her lips.

“Are you going to take this off or am I?”

“Tit for tat,” he breathed, and he pulled back far enough to press his forehead to hers and pushed one strap down her arm until the very top of her bra cup appeared. She snorted and he realized how that sounded. “Not... not  _ tit _ , just -- I’ll take mine off if you take yours off.”

“I’d rather you take it off for me.”

His eyes snapped away from the tantalizing swell of freckly breast to her face, to find her smiling coyly. “You’re serious?”

She nodded. 

Fitz shuffled backwards on his knees, Jemma’s leg still snug between them, and she followed slowly, scooting just a couple inches down the bed until there was space enough. Then, with trembling hands, Fitz carefully took the bottom hem and slid it the remaining few inches up her thighs until her dark purple knickers became visible.

He gulped.

His hands didn’t seem to be working and anyway she was sitting on the dress, but she seemed to recognize the dilemma, because she lifted her hips, pushing those intriguing knickers just a bit closer to him, and he was able to guide the dress around her arse.

She settled back down and, now holding her gaze for fear of looking at what he might be revealing, Fitz removed the dress from Jemma’s torso and slid it up and off of her raised arms.

He tossed it aside, his breath coming shallow and quick now and his trousers painfully tight, and still he hadn’t managed to look below her collarbone.

“Now,” Jemma murmured, and she leaned forward to undo the buttons of his shirt.

Her touch, surprisingly, sent a shock of reality back through him, and he noticed for the first time in several heated minutes the bruises and the cuts and the places he had made her bloody, the places he had hurt her. A wounded rumble rose unbidden in his chest and when Jemma looked at him questioningly, he just shook his head and leaned in to kiss her cheekbone.

“Fitz,” she giggled, half-heartedly pushing him away. “I can’t get this done if you keep doing that.”

“I don’t want to stop,” he protested, nuzzling down the side of her face.

“Take your shirt off, then,” she commanded, and he realized she’d gotten the buttons open, so he shucked it off and sent it after her dress, not caring that he’d spent an hour at Hunter’s ironing that damn shirt.

Jemma inhaled sharply as she took in his bare chest, but it was only appreciation he could discern in her face as she lightly ran her fingertips over his chest, over his attempt at abs.

And if  _ she  _ could ogle, well, then...

God, she was perfect. That was his first thought -- his only thought, really -- when he finally glanced down at her cream-colored bra and the little tucks in her stomach and her innie bellybutton. Shouldn’t he have known that about her by now? As her best friend and fake husband, shouldn’t he have seen her bellybutton before this moment?

He wanted to kiss it, to plunder it with his tongue, but Jemma hadn’t stopped her hands’ progress and now his belt was zipping out of its loops.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he grunted, and Jemma laughed.

“That’s the general idea.”

He descended on her again, savoring the burn of her bare skin under his hands as he held her down on one hip. He felt her undo his zip and start shimmying down his trousers and he kissed her harder, brought a hand up just under her breast, just to keep himself from thinking about what was about to happen.

The rush of cold air as she took his boxers down too, though,  _ that  _ was unexpected.

“Wha-!” he yelped.

“Tit for tat?” Jemma asked hopefully.

Fitz frantically kicked the whole mess of clothes away as Jemma wrapped an arm around his neck, clearly intent on pulling him in for another kiss, but he dove slightly out of the way and sucked on her collarbone as he reached under her to undo the clasp of her bra. His lips seemed to have the same effect on her as hers did on him, and she gasped and arched against him, so that when he pulled the bra away, her breasts pressed firmly against his chest.

With a hand under her back he lowered her down again, and he rested his forehead on her cheek as the other hand found the waistband of her knickers.

“It’s okay, Fitz,” she whispered, and he dragged the last bit of fabric away.

They were both near panting now, though they’d hardly done anything, and Jemma’s chest heaved against him as he fumbled to get the condom box open. She watched -- rather hungrily, he thought with equal parts terror and insatiable excitement -- as he rolled one on, and then he was back above her, holding himself up on his arms, capturing her lips again and again and again.

“Are you sure you want to do it this way?” he murmured, his entire body tense from the effort of holding himself up, and honestly from holding himself back.

“What do you want to do, go on a date first?” Jemma exclaimed, her hands falling away from his back in exasperation. “I think seven years of marriage more than qualifies us--”

“No, no,” Fitz rushed to clarify, “I meant this -- uh, this, erm, position. Missionary.”

“Oh.” Jemma snorted, then quite boldly wrapped a leg around his calf and stroked it with her toes. The slight change in position pressed him almost where he wanted to be, and he grunted.  “Fitz. It’s been seven years. We can’t waste any more time.”

As if to drive the point home, she pushed up on his chest with the apparent intention of flipping them over -- but she’d just said they had not a moment to lose.

So he held her down.

Her eyes widened at his force on her arms and he might’ve thought her afraid but for the near-total dilation of her pupils and the way she licked her lips as she glanced down between his legs.

He shifted his knee to rest between her legs, pushing them farther apart, and then brought the other knee in too and dragged her calves up his shoulders.

Jemma’s chest was heaving now. She kept opening her mouth to say something -- probably wanting to tell him what to do, he thought wryly -- before catching her bottom lip in her teeth and abandoning speech.

Fitz released her arms but placed his hands instead on her hips, his fingers just digging into the side of her arse, and he pushed her down against the bed.

She seemed to know what was about to happen and she whimpered and threw an arm over her eyes but then promptly peeked out from under it, seemingly unable to look away.

Holding her gaze, Fitz dipped his head lower until his lips found the soft pillow of her stomach. He kissed across her abs and swirled his tongue around the outer rim of her bellybutton, just as he’d fantasized.

It felt like a promise.

His teeth made her shiver as he explored the skin down to her dark thatch of hair. It was wild and unruly and tickled his face as he descended, Jemma’s thighs now squeezing his ears from either side. He could only just see her pink lips peeking through and he wanted to kiss them immediately, to lavish them with the same attention he’d devoted to her mouth, but instead he blew lightly up and down her slit.

“Oh god,” Jemma moaned. She pressed her heels down into his back -- to channel the sensations, possibly, or more likely to hold him in place -- and reached blindly for his head, fingers just grazing his forehead. “Oh Fitz--”

This really wouldn’t take as long as he anticipated, if she was already this sensitive.

_ Goddamn casanova indeed _ , he grinned to himself. He could get used to feeling like a sex god.

Quite through with the foreplay, Fitz skipped a few steps and thrust his tongue right where Jemma wanted it.

She cried out from the unexpected, long-desired entry and her hips rose right off the bed. The angle actually worked better for Fitz, so he supported her arse with one hand and began lapping into her. He knew he couldn’t reach the spots she needed, but he could get her close.

“Fitz,” she gasped, because  _ of course _ she was still trying to talk even as he pushed her towards orgasm. “I don’t know when you learned to do this -- and frankly I don’t want to know -- but --”

He slipped his tongue out so he could suck on the sensitive nub of her clit and she broke off with a strangled moan. He chuckled against her and the vibrations must’ve added something because rather than chiding him for laughing she began to push herself insistently against him once more.

“Fitz,” she repeated, this time more firmly. “Get up here.”

“Don’t you want me to finish this off?” He teased low along her slit with his finger, dancing dangerously close to the crack of her arse. Every part of her before him tensed deliciously.

“No,” Jemma nearly growled. “I want to finish with you inside of me.” And she wrapped her fingers in his hair and tugged him back up.

Fitz had wanted some shadow of this for  _ seven fucking years _ and now Jemma was gripping his arse and kissing the spot beneath his ear and  _ literally begging for his cock _ and the thought that she’d dreamt about this too, when they laid just a few meters apart in their respective bedrooms, threatened to drive him mad with lust. 

He hovered a moment longer above her, to recognize the smell of their sweat surrounding them, to trace her left nipple with his thumb, to wait for her small nod as he reached between them.

And then he took himself in hand and thrust into her.

Winding Jemma up with his tongue had been hot enough to last him a few dozen wanks but this -- this was transcendental. For a minute or so they couldn’t find each other’s mouths -- hell, Fitz could barely  _ breathe _ from the sensations: Jemma’s breasts rubbing against his chest, her pulse wild in the wrist he dragged above her head, the hot walls of her center clenching around him, and an edge of frustration to all of it, the remnant of their days of mutual prowling and the fight downstairs.

But above all else, this was  _ Jemma _ . He could close his eyes in a moment of ecstasy and when he opened them it would still be his Jemma, still her cheeks strewn with freckles like a field of little brown flowers, still those forehead creases he knew so well as she screwed up her face in wanton pleasure, still her breathy little gasps puffing against his cheek.

There would be time to tell her he loved her later, if she still didn’t know.

For now...

When they finally kissed again, they fought for control, Jemma steering his head with the hand he didn’t have pinned down and Fitz nipping her lips and evading her mouth until she whined in protest.

“I -- w-want --” she gasped needfully, the sound nearly enough to drive Fitz over.    


She wrenched her wrist from his grasp and sought the space where they joined, but Fitz understood what she was after and tugged her hand away again, replacing it with his own.

He waited until he found her clit with his thumb before he pumped into her again, the two sources of friction coming one on the heels of the other, and he could feel the first ripples of orgasm begin to wash over Jemma.

Knowing she was close, he let go. He pressed down to kiss her again, trapping his hand almost painfully between them, and ground into her. Whatever bruises came tomorrow, adrenaline and need and love and relief and desperation and not an insignificant bit of anger at Jemma for believing he could’ve been Hydra carried him now, as they practically grappled to climax.

Jemma’s shudders beneath him barely registered as he came with one final, painful thrust into her. She was still clenching around him when the fog cleared a bit, like she was still seeking more, but he lowered his head to her chest and found her heart rate beginning to settle and knew she had come as well.

Somehow that knowledge let him fully relax and he rolled off of her, disposing of the condom in seconds so he wouldn’t have to abandon her luxurious warmth. When he returned she pulled him to nestle against her and looped an arm over his back.

“Next time I’ll make you scream,” he murmured against the side of her breast. For all his bravado, that promise was really more something his badass agent person would make rather than he, Fitz, whoever that was these days. He was glad his face was already flushed with their love-making, so Jemma wouldn’t see him blush with embarrassment.

“Next time?” Jemma huffed, tickling his ribs half-heartedly. “This was a one-time affair, oh lover. All part of my plan to lure you into a happy state of near-sedation so I could more easily eliminate my enemy target.”

“I would die happy,” Fitz sighed.

He closed his eyes and felt Jemma’s gaze on him for a long time before she dusted his nose with a kiss. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to Janelle for straight-up telling me I wasn't bringing the sexy enough. She gets the credit for this!!


	7. Chapter 7

“Baby?”

“Definitely not.”

“Cutie pie.”

Fitz pretended to spit up his tea. “Jemma, please. I’m an internationally feared superspy. Hard veto.”

“Sweetums?”

“Try again.”

Jemma grinned up at the ceiling. She didn’t really need a nickname for Fitz but it felt so harmless and tame and  _ domestic _ , so right for a proper married couple to throw around terms of endearment, to be constantly in pursuit of words enough to capture their love.

They’d made breakfast and Fitz was still finishing off his toast, sitting in the hallway with his back to the wall. Jemma laid upon the floorboards in just his discarded dress shirt, her bare bum pressed to the side of his thigh and her legs draped across his lap. He’d retrieved his boxers and a new shirt at some point, much to her disappointment, but he kept looking at her with an expression somewhere between ravenous and rapturous so she couldn’t stay glum for long.

As she idly sought for more silly names to toss out for Fitz to inevitably reject, her head lolled to the side and she gazed down the hall at the kitchen. The house was still a mess: they’d cleared away only enough of the shards of glass and wood to navigate careful paths on tip-toe and to sit here together. A chair was shattered on the tiles, and the island-- well.

Jemma blushed as more memories flooded back. Or one specific memory, of Fitz behind her as they both bent over the island, overwhelming heat and tension but also Fitz’s mouth suckling the soft flesh at the back of her arm and his hand pressing hers into the cool marble and his other arm just under her breasts, holding her as they--

“Hey,” Fitz murmured, running a thumb over the jutting bone of her ankle. “Where’d you go?”

Jemma chuckled and jerked her chin towards the kitchen.

“Oh.” Fitz snorted, understanding immediately. “Should I be proud or embarrassed?”

“Definitely proud,” Jemma answered automatically, defying the distinct flush in her cheeks.

“Good.” Fitz was silent for a moment as he traced the underside of her knee, then he murmured, “Jemma, where did you get the scar on your ribs? On the right side?”

Jemma propped herself up on her forearms so she could look at him properly. Leave it to Fitz to focus on past dangers she may have faced rather than on their exquisite night of having the most mind-blowing sex known to man. Though, she had to admit, they did have a lot to cover.

“Sword fight,” she replied casually. “Jakarta.”

His jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

She shrugged, glad she’d left his shirt unbuttoned beyond the point of practicality so his eyes strayed down as her chest moved. “Knives are my preference, but swords are just really big knives, aren’t they?”

“And the one on the back of your upper thigh?”

“I took a bullet for my S.O. in Quebec. Found out afterward it was a good way to earn a promotion.”

“And this one?” Fitz lightly touched the white band of taut skin just below Jemma’s left knee. “This one I should’ve noticed before.”

“That one’s from playing football a bit too eagerly in grade school,” she admitted, drawing her knee towards her to look at it. She almost certainly flashed Fitz in the process but he didn’t complain. “My entire kneecap actually popped out.”

“Eurgh, too much information!” Fitz groaned.

“I’m sure you’ve got your fair share of scars,” she chuckled, sliding her leg back so she could press her heel into his leg and jostle it.

“Actually, I paid excellent attention to the S.H.I.E.L.D. health and safety handbook and have largely avoided personal injury.”

“What, did you get some poor intern to do your dirty work for you?” Jemma teased.

“Just because I’m responsible and you’re reckless--”

“You’ve never seen me in action,” she shot back.

“Oh, you don’t consider last night to be ‘in action?’” When Jemma waggled her eyebrows at him, he sighed, “Not  _ that  _ part of last night. The part where you were trying to shoot my head off.”

“My targets don’t usually elicit an emotional response from me,” Jemma said begrudgingly. “Last night was hardly indicative of my average job performance.”

“Whatever you say, Simmons.”

“Fitz.”

“Hmm?”

“No,  _ Fitz _ ,” Jemma corrected. “I’m Fitz as well. Or have you forgotten I took your name?”

Fitz scrunched his nose at the wall opposite. “Can I still call you Simmons? I’d feel funny saying ‘Fitz’ to you.”

“As you wish, honey-bunny.”

“I’m going to start calling you lassie if you don’t cut that out,” he threatened.

“Hot stuff?” Jemma suggested.

Fitz plunged for her, tickling every inch of her -- clothed or not -- he could find, and Jemma curled around him, shaking with laughter, until she couldn’t bear it anymore and begged him to stop. (Quite the opposite of the night before, she thought with a pulse between her legs.)

Grinning, Fitz moved away again and leaned his head back against the wall, leaving one hand on her hip. Jemma ran a finger across his bloodied knuckles and back again. She wondered how many times he’d had to stitch himself up because he couldn’t come home looking like an agent. She wondered if he’d ever considered breaking down and telling her the truth.

“Jemma,” Fitz said again, just as quietly as when he’d asked her about her scars. “What was your first kill like?”

Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.

Jemma felt her face crumple and she threw a hand across her eyes to try to keep some of the tears in.

“Jemma, Jemma, shh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve--” He leaned over her, his hands hovering by her face and stroking her hair and god if that wasn’t Fitz, there to help her the minute she needed it but never assuming she couldn’t work through it herself.

“No,” she choked out with a violent shake of her head. “It’s a reasonable question, it’s a major part of our work, but-- I’d like to think I’d be able to tell you someday, Fitz, but in all honesty I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.”

He was silent as she calmed herself, and when she peaked blearily up at him, he was still watching her with considerable worry and guilt.

She reached up, as best she could from this position, and cradled his scruffy cheek in one hand. He closed his eyes at the touch.

“Do you remember at uni, when I told you I had mono and wouldn’t let you in for a few weeks?”

Fitz nodded, a gentle furrow between his brows.

“That was after it happened. That was how I dealt with it -- spiralling depression and self-hatred and the accidental imposition of a fast that almost put me in the hospital. Bobbi helped me--”

“Bobbi knew you were a spy?” Fitz interrupted.

“Bobbi  _ is  _ a spy, Fitz. She leads the southern division.”

“ _ Bobbi’s a  _ \--” Fitz shook his head and waved for her to continue.

“I’ve nearly reached the point where I can think about the whole thing without crippling stomach pains but it’s not -- I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Not even to you.”

That distinction was important, she felt. Because Fitz was the exception to most everything in her life, and he needed to know that. She would repeat it as often as necessary.

“That was actually why I recommended to my S.O. that the CIA prioritize use of ICERs and other non-lethal methods,” Jemma added lightly. “I was pleasantly surprised they actually listened, though.”

“That was  _ you _ ?” Fitz gaped. “I mean, I knew the directive had come from a fairly young agent in the CIA but -- we modeled our own program after that, did you know? S.H.I.E.L.D. agreed that the best way to go about serving and protecting was to probably  _ not  _ kill everyone, so -- you’ve saved a lot of lives, Jemma.”

Jemma flushed from his praise, and from the glowing look he was giving her. It had been a long time since she’d felt proud of what she did.

“Hang on!” Fitz exclaimed suddenly. “If you’re all ‘Miss We-Don’t-Take-Lives’, how come you were so ready to use an automatic weapon and unload a machine gun on me, your honey-bunny?”

Jemma winced and squinted up at him. “I was hoping you’d overlook that little digression--”

“Digression?! You could’ve killed me!”

“You could’ve fired back if you wanted!” she protested, scrambling up and dragging her legs off of his. “If you weren’t insistent on being so stupidly noble--”

“Well,  _ excuse me _ for being too in love with you to risk hurting you!” Fitz cried.

Jemma sighed and ran her hands down her face before swinging her leg back over Fitz’s hips and settling securely on his lap. She toyed with the breast pocket of his  worn t-shirt, murmuring demurely, “You’re right, darling dearest. I’ve been a terrible nightmare for you. If I apologize, could you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

Fitz scowled at her but his hands were on her hips, flirting dangerously with the hem of the shirt barely covering Jemma’s arse, and the tilt of his head said he’d already stopped being angry with her. “Only if you promise you love me very much,” he grumbled.

“So so so much,” Jemma whispered, and she held his chin between her thumb and middle finger as she leaned in for a kiss. (It had really been far too long since she kissed him. An entire breakfast’s-worth of minutes.)

But as their lips met, Fitz’s tongue already greedily sneaking out, something exploded outside and the glass in the front door shattered over them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate writing action. I haaaaaate it. I hope this wasn't as painful to read as it was to write.


	8. Chapter 8

Fitz threw himself upon Jemma, shielding her from the glass pelting down on them with an instinct he hadn’t known he still possessed after so many years of working alone. When the initial explosion was over, he pulled back, shaking shards from his hair, and grabbed her hand to haul her to her feet and drag her after him down the hallway.

“Wait!” she called, and his hold on her tugged him back as she stooped for her machine gun on the living room floor.

She checked the rounds in the chamber and cocked it against her hip, then glanced back at Fitz, who would’ve been having trouble forming coherent thoughts even without the unknown threat outside their house.

“What?” Jemma demanded.

“I hate to say it, but that’s maddeningly sexy,” he admitted, nodding towards the weapon, towards her state of undress, towards the combination of it all.

She grinned. “Get used to it.”

A round of bullets cracked through the front door, hitting the kitchen wall just to Fitz’s left, and they both ducked; the first volley was followed by more shots through the living room window and through the wall of the garage. Fitz shoved Jemma ahead of him -- which might have been a bad idea, as he remembered now that she wasn’t wearing any knickers.

“The place is surrounded!” he yelled over the gunfire. “I can see at least a half dozen men in the back garden.”

“Down here,” Jemma ordered, throwing open the door to the cellar.

“It’s a dead end!”

“I have weapons down there, unless you’d prefer to bash our way out with some paring knives and the bed as a battering ram?”

“After you,” Fitz panted.

“Ever the gentleman.”

Jemma already had three panels removed from the wall by the time he reached the bottom of the steps. He helped her unload guns of nearly every possible description onto the worktable -- it was a seemingly endless assortment, and he was really rather flabbergasted he’d never leaned on that wall and accidentally blown something up.

“Take this one,” Jemma commanded, shoving a pistol into his hands. “It’s an ICER.”

“Whereas yours...”

“Is also an ICER!” she snapped, and they both winced as another explosion rattled the whole house and sent dust cascading down onto them.

“So I’m the only person for whom you reserve real bullets? Wow, thanks, love, I’m touched!” 

“You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“Of course n-- Shh!”

Fitz threw an arm in front of Jemma, trying to shield her with his body, but she grumbled and shoved him aside. The door at the top of the steps had creaked open.

They stood nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, guns trained on the landing, ready to shoot the first assassin down the steps.

Instead of steel-toed boots, though, a little robot descended onto the landing with a gentle  _ clunk _ .

“Hang on,” Fitz said slowly, lowering his gun. “That’s  _ my  _ tech!”

The robot turned its head, lit with blue light, towards the sound, toddled for a moment on the spot, and then hurled a grenade onto the concrete at their feet.

“Do something!” Fitz shrieked at the same time that Jemma yelled, “Get rid of it!”

“This bodes well for our partnership,” Fitz muttered, and he swung a kick at the grenade, his only plan to send it as far away from them as possible.

...Which worked, after a fashion. The grenade soared to the far end of the cellar. And then it rolled under the oil tank.

“GO!” Jemma shouted, slamming into his back with both hands and propelling him towards the stairs that led out of the cellar and into the backyard.

Fitz flung the doors above his head open just as the place blew. The force of the explosion threw him against the top steps so that his knees and hands scraped, but he’d felt Jemma fall below him and he twisted, ignoring the flames billowing towards them and the house collapsing above them, and grabbed her wrists, dragging her up with him.

They fell back against the grass in some kind of apocalyptic scene, burning boards falling from the sky and smoke licking across the lawn. They had a second, if that, to take in their destroyed home --  _ well, that domesticity lasted about as long as it could be expected _ , Fitz thought regretfully -- before they saw the advantage offered by the temporary cover of the explosion.

Fitz helped Jemma to her feet and they sprinted across the lawn, striking out with the butts of their guns as dark figures stumbled towards them through the choking smoke. The location of the cellar placed them too far from the garage to make for their own cars, but apparently their minds linked effortlessly in this line of work as it always had in their friendship, because Jemma ran at Fitz’s side without questioning his plan.

They leapt over the small hedge between their property and the neighbors’, and it was only as Fitz forced up the garage door that Jemma cried, “Fitz, I’ve left my -- I’ve not got any knickers!”

“We’ll get you new ones!” He glanced back to inspect her bare thighs and the hem of his shirt, barely hiding anything. “Or maybe not.”

“NOT THE TIME, FITZ!”

“Alright, alright,” he muttered, and he winced as he smashed his elbow through the driver’s side window of their neighbors’ minivan and unlocked the door. He pushed Jemma through, helping her (very considerately) with a hand on her bare bum.

She hovered above him with her gun while he ducked under the steering wheel and set about hot-wiring the car.

Above him, Jemma made a soft little nonverbal sound. He glanced up. “What?”

She shrugged, shifting on her knees so her legs squeezed together, and jerked her chin towards his hands as the car rumbled to life. “Nothing. Just...  _ that’s _ maddeningly sexy.”

“Get used to it,” he shot back, giddy pride warming his chest. “Ah, good, NPR’s on. Don’t even have to change the station.”

They screeched out onto the street just as the assassins emerged, coughing, from the smoke, and a volley of bullets cracked the rear windshield but didn’t penetrate it.

“Impressive engineering,” Jemma commented, as if they were having a chat over tea.

Leaving her gun on the seat, she crawled back between the seats -- Fitz fervently prayed the car in front of them didn’t contain any small children who might turn around and see a lily-white arse mooning them. He heard a rustle and glanced into the rear-view mirror. “What’ve you got there?”

“Dry-cleaning!” she called gleefully. “It’ll be a touch uncomfortable without my knickers -- you know how well-starched the Talbots keep their trousers...”

She’d only just zipped up the loose black dress pants and was clambering back into the seat beside Fitz when he noticed a BMW with tinted windows swerve into the lane behind them and accelerate towards them.

“Honey, we’ve got company,” he muttered.

“You should’ve warned me, I’d’ve brought out our good china.” And she leaned out of the passenger window and began shooting.

Fitz dared to glance at her -- he dared only that much, or he’d wreck the car as they hurtled onto the freeway. Less than twelve hours ago he’d been making love to her for the first time, and now there she was, in his shirt and Carla Talbot’s trousers, the muscles in her right forearm tensed as she kept herself from flying right out of the car.

Well, no one could say their relationship wasn’t exciting.

“Fitz, stop swerving!” Jemma snapped, swooping back in.

“I’ve never driven one of these before!” he protested.

“Get used to it. Our kids are going to have a proper suburban upbringing.”

“ _ Kids _ ?!” he yelped.

“Looks like our friends back there aren’t alone.”

There was a veritable caravan trailing them now, the BMW joined by two black SUVs.

“They’re being  _ so  _ obvious about it,” Jemma tutted. “I’m ashamed to call them spies.”

“Maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re just the hit squad,” Fitz said grimly.

Jemma rolled her eyes. “Alright, let me do it.”

“What, drive?!”

“No, prophesize darkly about our impending doom.  _ Yes _ , drive. Move over.”

She pressed her gun into his palm and tried to slip over his lap at the same time that he slid to the right, and even as he kept his free hand on the steering wheel, Jemma was pressed against him in the close confines of the car, nearly straddling him, her hands on the seat behind his shoulders.

“Not the time, Jemma,” he chuckled.

She huffed and twisted to sit on his lap, but he squeezed, somewhat reluctantly, out from under her and let her take the wheel.

“This is about as much fun as that time your dad took me golfing,” Fitz joked, wedging himself behind Jemma’s seat so he wouldn’t go flying out and yanked the side door open.

“My dad’s dead!” Jemma shouted over the wind now buffeting them.

“Wha -- then who was that man who walked you down the aisle?” he demanded.

“Paid actor! Same with my mum. You think I’d bring my real parents into this mess?”

Fitz groaned and rolled his head exaggeratedly, then, mimicking Jemma’s early move, swung out through the open door and fired a volley. “I brought  _ my  _ parents to the wedding!”

“Would you get back in the car?” Jemma yelled. “And strap in.”

He’d barely gotten himself into the back seat before Jemma served, hard, and struck the BMW as it sped up alongside them. The impact, coupled with the other vehicle’s forward acceleration, sent it careening over the divider and into oncoming traffic.

“Where’d’you learn to drive like that?” Fitz whooped, unbuckling so he could swoop around the seat and smush a kiss to Jemma’s temple.

“Atlanta, six years ago.” 

“The business trip after which you suddenly took an interest in luxury vehicles?”

“That’s the one.”

“Some spies we are,” Fitz muttered. “We’re as obvious as my gran playing matchmaker.”    


“Well, you can tell your gran to retire,” Jemma said grimly, “because you’re well off the market. I’m going to try to shake our tails -- can you--”

“On it.”

While Jemma continued to weave through traffic, clipping mirrors as she made the tightest adjustments possible, Fitz pushed his head and shoulders up through the open sunroof, ready to drop back at the first gunshot. In a minute he’d assessed the SUVs behind them and the road ahead.

“I need your gun,” he called down to Jemma. “Your other gun.”

“What? Why?”

“I need the real bullets. Just trust me.”

She thrust it up to him and he twisted to face the direction of their travel. From 200 feet out, he started shooting at a large green directional sign above the freeway, clipping it at strategic edges as they approached. It started to swing precariously downwards and Jemma shouted, “I hope you know what you’re doing!”

Just as they passed underneath, Fitz fired straight up, ducking down as he struck metal and a shower of sparks fell on their car. The giant sign itself fell a moment later, striking the windshields of the pursuing SUVs and blinding them. Both cars spun towards the shoulder as their drivers fought for control, and Jemma took the opportunity to turn last-minute for the exit. Fitz watched until the SUVs, still struggling, were out of sight.

“That’ll buy us some time, at least,” Fitz panted, dropping into the seat beside Jemma. “But we’re going to have to redo every conversation we’ve ever had. “Anything else I should know?”

She frowned at the steering wheel, then shrugged. “I’m Jewish.” 

  
  
  
  


“You’re going to get me killed!” Hunter hissed as Fitz hurried Jemma over the threshold. “Me  _ and  _ my mum!”

“Unless the tripwires, booby traps, security cameras, and holographic decoys have all taken the day off, I doubt that,” Fitz said drily.

“So you’re Jemma.” Hunter stood before her, leaning a bit too close. “This is your fault, you know? The lot of this.”

“How is this  _ my _ \--”

“Lay off, Hunter,” Fitz cut in sharply.

“I’ve known Fitz since we were kids, so I've been in his life longer than you have,” Hunter whispered.

“Quality, not quantity,” Jemma shot back, smirking.

“Is that supposed to be a sex thing?” Hunter demanded. “Because obviously I can’t compete in that arena, but the  _ assumption  _ that my friendship with Fitz isn’t as fulfilling as his fornication with you--”

Fitz stepped between them, hoping Hunter would read his arm around Jemma as a protective stance rather than as literally holding her back from going off on him. (He wasn’t stupid. He knew who the more dangerous of the two  _ actually  _ was.) “Hunter,  _ stop _ . You promised you would help. Leave the editorial at the door.”

Hunter petulantly swept his arm towards the kitchen, gesturing for them to proceed. Fitz gratefully dropped into the first chair he saw, and Jemma followed suit after handing him a wet cloth for a cut that had reopened on his cheek.

“What’ve you found?” Fitz prompted.

Hunter plunged his hands into the deep pockets of his bathrobe -- “every time of day is bathrobe time, Fitz” -- and leaned back against the counter. “Nothing good. It’s obvious your agencies want you dead. Chatter’s not clear on why, though I assume it has something to do with the hits you both failed to carry out on each other.”

“Chatter?” Jemma repeated dubiously.

“I’m a mercenary, love,” Hunter said lazily. “Same as you, just without all the parlance and bureaucracy. You have your sources. I have mine.”

“All of them illegal, I’m sure.”

“Do you want to get out of this alive or not?”

Jemma scowled.

“How bad is it?” Fitz asked Hunter. He’d never admit it, but he wanted Jemma and Hunter to get on and things had not gotten off to an auspicious start.

“Bad?” Hunter snorted. “Remember Mexico City?” 

Fitz shivered involuntarily. “How could I forget it?”

“This is worse, mate. Fifty, one hundred times worse. The resources they’ve put into finding you two--”

“Hang on,” Jemma interrupted. “Mexico City -- that was  _ you _ ?”

“Oh, is that a turn on?” Hunter groaned. “You two deserve each other.” He caught sight of Fitz’s aggrieved expression and pressed on, “As I see it, there are a few options. You could negotiate. You know your agencies better than I do so you’d know if that’s an option--”

“It’s not,” Fitz said immediately. “With everything with Hydra, trust is at an all-time low.”

“The CIA might be slightly better,” Jemma added slowly, “and my team would stand beside me, but...”

She trailed off, frowning at the linoleum.

“Jemma?” Fitz said quietly, reaching across the kitchen table to touch her hand.

She started, eyes widening as if she had to mentally pull herself back from somewhere distant. “Sorry, what?”

“You were saying something?”

“No, no, I’d finished,” she insisted, and though she was clearly practiced at lying, Fitz knew the tightness around her lips pointed to a secret withheld. “What are the other possibilities?”

“Fake your deaths or go off the grid.”

“What would we need to do to disappear?” Fitz asked, passing over the first suggestion.

“Separate.”

“Not an option,” Fitz and Jemma said at the same time. Fitz smiled shyly at Jemma and took her hand again.

“Look, don’t hate me for saying this, but if you stay together, you’re almost definitely dead. You’d be easier to track, you’d have a harder time vanishing at a moment’s notice... A couple is more conspicuous than a single person. You separate, your odds go up slightly.  _ Slightly _ , mind you. Still a gamble.”

“Really? That’s all you came up with?” Fitz sighed, rubbing the heel of one hand into his eye.

“It’s either that or find something they want more than you.” Hunter shrugged. “Sorry, mate, but you’re fairly well fucked.” 

  
  
  
  


Hunter consented -- with great grumbling and slamming of cabinets -- to let the both of them stay the night as he continued to monitor available channels of communication and to give them time to recuperate before their next step. He handed them some of his sweats, and as Jemma rolled the pants down over her waist five times, he left them in the living room with a stern admonition of, “And  _ no  _ hanky panky!”

Fitz laid on the narrow couch, ready to vacate it for the floor as soon as Jemma came back from the bathroom. She’d seemed somehow lost since their conversation in the kitchen, and while Fitz understood the feeling of hopelessness, he wanted nothing more than to hold her and murmur assurances and find comfort in the fact that for now, at least, they were together. She, meanwhile, had pulled away.

When she finally padded back in, she turned off the overhead light so that just the standing lamp next to the couch remained lit. She stood for a moment in the darkness -- Fitz could just see her outline against the doorway -- and then crossed the room and sat gingerly on the edge of the couch, seeming to purposefully keep her hip from pressing into his.

He laid a hand on her knee and rubbed it back and forth. Alright, it was a bit odd, feeling the velour which could only make him think of Hunter, but she was  _ here _ , she was Jemma and she was  _ here _ , with him.

“I’d like to explain a few things, Fitz,” she whispered, gaze focused on her hands in her lap.

“You don’t need to,” Fitz rushed to say. He’d been stupid to push -- they both had bits of their past they’d rather not share.

“No,” Jemma insisted, pressing her lips together like she’d worked herself up to this and was afraid she’d lose the courage. “Today reminded me that while last night was...  _ brilliant _ , and while it seemed then like we’d have an eternity, we don’t live in that world. We don’t have all the time in the universe. And I think... I think it’s time I told someone.”

Fitz pushed himself up onto his side and pressed back against the couch, tugging Jemma so she was snug against him. He woved his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder and waited.

“My first kill,” she began, voice already shaking. “That would’ve been dreadful enough, but... I was betrayed by a fellow agent on that op. It nearly made me leave the agency altogether. He... he was a Hydra agent, one of the first ones unearthed -- well, he outed himself -- and he was supposed to guide me through the process, show me the necessary evil of occasional casualties, but instead... He orchestrated it so that I killed half a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. technicians -- compassionate, innocent people with such low clearance levels they’d probably never even wielded a gun. I still don’t know what his motives were, but I think he might’ve been part of the inner circle, truly high up in Hydra. He stole tech and plans and kidnapped a few scientists and then fled.”

“He could’ve killed you,” Fitz whispered, heart throbbing painfully in his chest.

“I’m sure he considered it,” Jemma admitted. “But he knew it wasn’t necessary. The sense of betrayal, the coincidence of it all, such a thing happening to a new agent -- he knew the CIA would be loathe to trust me and that I’d be lucky to not be kicked out or tried for treason on the spot.”

“Hence your reluctance to negotiate now,” Fitz realized. “You think with that on your record they’d suspect the worst of you.”

Jemma nodded. “I’ve been careful since then. Did everything I could to earn their trust, to prove myself. Took two dozen lie detector tests over the course of a six-month period. Allowed them to monitor all my communications and movements and even let them put a camera in my dorm room. But even when I was cleared for duty, I had a hard time trusting my fellow agents. I saw Hydra at every turn. So I’ve worked with a carefully selected team and no one else. I’ve worked harder than is necessarily healthy, sometimes, but I’ve been rewarded for it.

“And then when I thought you were Hydra...” Jemma hunched forward so her spine ridged against Fitz’s leg and her face was thrown into shadow. “I can’t explain it, Fitz, but all those feelings from my first op came back like bile in my throat -- only a million times worse because it was  _ you _ , the only constant, good thing in my life, and -- if I could’ve killed that agent back then, I would have. I try to stun, not kill, at every possible opportunity, but he  _ deserved  _ it. And I think I channeled that agony and hatred and blind rage towards you, because the thought of experiencing that level of betrayal and manipulation again, coupled with the thought of losing you from my life forever.... I know it’s not enough of an explanation, and I could never provide that, but I’ll never be able to stop apologizing.”

He took the silent sobs that started to shake her as a sign that her soliloquy was over, so he slid his arms up to her shoulders and drew her to his chest. He held her until her tears had soaked his t-shirt, until her fist unfurled and her breathing evened and they both fell asleep on the couch in each other’s arms. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I HATE ACTION. 
> 
> Also, your headcanons about the Hydra agent who betrayed Jemma are 1000% correct.


	9. Chapter 9

“So you’re Fitz,” Daisy said the second they let her in. “Scrawnier than I would’ve imagined, given how much time Jemma’s spent mooning over you.”

Hunter snorted from the couch, where he was sprawled playing video games and wearing his usual, hideous tracksuit.

“And you’re Daisy,” Fitz replied calmly, taking her extended hand. “Jemma had never mentioned you before yesterday, but as I understand it, you were the one who tried to blow up the elevator you thought I was in.”

Daisy froze mid-handshake and grimaced. “Seriously, Jem, you told him?”

Jemma shrugged. “It came up.”

“I’ll forgive you for trying to kill my best girl if you forgive me for that,” Daisy offered.

“Actually...” Fitz chuckled.

“Fitz never  _ actually  _ tried to kill me, once he knew it was me,” Jemma finished for him. “He was using an ICER the whole time.”

“Damn it,” Daisy muttered. “She always said you were a damn knight in shining armor, but I thought it was the fog of love.”

"Shut the door before the snipers take you out,” Hunter called. “And stop stinking up my doorstep with all that love crap.”

“Hunter’s a bit of a cynic,” Jemma whispered to Daisy as they led her to the kitchen. “Fitz promises he’s a big softie when he decides he likes you, but that hasn’t happened with me yet.”

“He went through a bad divorce,” Fitz sighed. He’d had to explain this to Jemma the night before as well. “I’ve known him for twenty years and worked with him for five, and he won’t even tell me the woman’s name.”

“She’s the she-devil. That’s all you need to know!” Hunter’s voice was followed by a particularly aggressive volley of gunfire in his game.

Jemma rolled her eyes but gestured for Daisy to take a seat at the table. Daisy plopped into a chair and hauled out her laptop and several other devices even Jemma couldn’t identify, spreading them across the tabletop until she had a regular battle station assembled.

Fitz migrated to lean against the counter next to Jemma, even though there was an open chair right in front of him. She resisted the urge to lean her head against his shoulder -- as close as she and Daisy were, she wanted to maintain  _ some  _ modicum of professionalism -- and settled for sliding closer until their hips bumped. She felt immeasurably lighter, knowing that he knew her demons, and lighter still for the way he didn’t look at her any differently.

“What was the dude’s name again?” Daisy asked without looking up from her screen.

“Dr. Franklin Hall,” Jemma supplied. “He was a professor at our university.”

“Alright, Franky, where you at?” Daisy muttered, fingers flying across the screen.

“Do you want us to leave you to--”

“Oh, no,” Daisy snorted, waving a hand in their direction. “This’ll take me, like, five minutes. It helps that we know where he was a few days ago -- makes tracing him, through communications and social media and satellite images,  _ loads _ easier.”

_ Loads,  _ Fitz mouthed dramatically at Jemma and she giggled. Daisy glanced up. “Unless you have something you want to be doing. Like--” She made an explicit hand gesture which Hunter would’ve enjoyed immensely if he’d been in the room.

“Daisy, focus, please.”

“Right, boss.”

The idea, of course, was that Hall and the tech prototypes he’d been working on were valuable to the CIA, S.H.I.E.L.D. (the few agents Fitz deemed to not be traitors), and Hydra alike. Maybe valuable enough to trade for their lives.

Jemma had seen Daisy hack, or as she called it, ‘conduct research’, dozens of times before, so she expected a cry of “Eureka!” or at minimum a satisfied sigh as she sat back in her chair, threw her feet up on the table, and announced her success.

Instead, Daisy frowned, chin in her palm, and made a confused little “hmmph” noise.

“Did you find him?”

“Well, I’ve got good news and bad news--”

“Bad news first,” Jemma and Fitz said simultaneously. Jemma pinched his side as she tried to keep a straight face for Daisy’s sake.

“Okay, I framed that wrong. The good news and the bad news are the same thing, kind of. Just depends how you look at it.” Daisy spun her laptop so they could see what she’d found. “Hall’s not in Hydra custody and he’s not being held against his will. He’s back at your university prepping for the new semester. Seems to come and go as he pleases, doesn’t have any kind of security detail. Which is a little strange, considering he’s on the run from the CIA and was trying to get himself into Hydra employ.”

“Could be a trap,” Fitz murmured. 

“Definitely a trap,” Jemma said grimly.

They looked at each other for a long moment, eyebrows raised, and Jemma felt -- impossible as it seemed -- that just like that they were able to get on the same page.

Daisy cleared her throat. “Earth to the newlyweds!” 

“We’ve been married for seven years,” Jemma protested too quickly, heat rising in her cheeks as she finally looked away.

“Yeah, but you’ve only been  _ married  _ for a little over twenty-four hours,” Daisy reminded them significantly. “Consummated and all that.” 

“Why do I tell you anything?” Jemma grumbled. 

  
  
  
  
  


The last students from Dr. Hall’s first lecture had just filtered out through the auditorium’s upper exits when one of the stage-side doors opened. He turned, mid-way through wiping down the whiteboard, and jumped.    


“Oh! Mr. Fitz! My, it’s been awhile, how on earth are you -- what...” 

He stumbled backwards, trying to reach the door behind him while keeping Fitz in his line of sight, when that door opened as well. He whirled to face Jemma. 

“And Ms. Simmons! Well, you two were always inseparable, of course that wouldn’t’ve changed... What are you doing here?”

“Actually, it’s Mrs. Fitz, now,” Jemma informed him. She caught Fitz’s smug and adorably sappy grin over Hall’s shoulder and had to fight a smile herself. Smiling while trying to threaten one’s former mentor was  _ not  _ proper interrogation technique. “But I expect you know that already.”

“I don’t--” Hall backed towards the middle of the room again, only stopping when he ran into the table he’d used during the lecture. He glanced between the two approaching agents and gulped. “I must admit, I’m a bit lost.”

“How is it that you, a former CIA operative, are working here, at a university populated largely by non-spies, when just earlier this week you tried to turn yourself into Hydra?”

“Well, now, there are a lot of words in there I don’t understand,” Hall chuckled nervously. His hands were raised before him, as if in self-defense, and they trembled visibly.

Jemma felt a momentary flash of doubt. She and Hall hadn’t known each other’s double-lives when she’d worked in his lab during university. He’d just been her professor and she, merely an overachieving student. Maybe they were wrong -- maybe he wasn’t CIA after all? Maybe he was nothing beyond the patches on his jumpers and the old-fashioned round glasses he wore.

God, Fitz was making her soft, thinking everyone was innocent.

She drew a gun out of the back of her waistband and cocked it idly, casually, fiddling with the trigger without looking up at Hall. The bullets were an ICER extension, filled with a completely harmless solution, but Hall didn’t know that.

“My husband and I have run into a spot of trouble lately, Dr. Hall. We’ve had these pesky little assassins trailing us all week, ever since that aborted hit on you, and it’s growing rather tiresome to have to duck and run all the time.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with--”

Fitz leaned sideways against the table right next to Hall, one hand planted so the muscles in his forearm tensed. He didn’t say anything, just gazed unblinkingly down at the smaller man. A little thrill ran through Jemma to see him act so powerful and controlled and she made a promise to herself to revisit that, together, in a more private location, when this was all over. 

“We’ve run through a number of scenarios and they keep leading us back to you,” Jemma continued, tapping the gun against her palm.

“This doesn’t need to be hard, Franklin,” Fitz murmured, almost seductively. “It’s not you we’re after.”

“Unless you don’t talk, of course,” Jemma cut in. “Then we might need to use you as leverage. Nothing personal.”

“Of course, of course,” Hall tittered. He was working himself into a frenzy and would be liable to wet himself soon if they didn’t move this along. CIA operative or not, he was only a scientist and not a trained field agent.

“Why aren’t you working at Hydra’s facilities, Dr. Hall?”

This time, Jemma openly turned the gun towards him and he flinched, jumping away from it, though that only sent him bumbling against Fitz. He careened back and cowered between them.

“It was a set-up, okay?!” he cried. “You were the targets all along, I was the bait. You were never supposed to assassinate me -- you were supposed to take each other out, save everybody a lot of work.” 

“Why?” Jemma demanded.

“Hydra knew you’d never join them, so they wanted you dead. You’re too much of a threat.”

“But the CIA--”

“Has been infiltrated too,” Hall sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose. “All the way up. So arranging a joint operation with Hydra’s S.H.I.E.L.D. division was fairly straightforward, as I understand it. Your deaths were all that mattered in this scenario.”

Jemma looked across him at Fitz, her chest full of a burning breath she couldn’t seem to release.

“And you, Dr. Hall?” Fitz asked, his tough-guy facade dropping as he stepped back and crossed his arms. “Where does your allegiance fall?”

Hall threw his hands in the air. “The hell if I know. With whoever offers me the best benefit package, honestly.”

“Oh, god, Fitz,” Jemma gasped. “Bobbi, and Daisy -- do you think they’re -- they can’t be--”

“Daisy helped us find Hall, she’s not part of this,” Fitz said grimly. “But Bobbi--”

“She came into town the  _ day before _ this all started.”

“It’s a bit convenient,” Fitz admitted.

“Do you know the names of the people who orchestrated this?” Jemma shot at Hall.

“I don’t, I swear,” he insisted, hands up in surrender again. “But I do know that Hydra’s been tracking my movements and visitors and they’ll definitely know you’re here. If I may make a suggestion?”

“Yes?” Fitz and Jemma ground out in unison. 

“Run.” 

The doors above burst open. Jemma’s head whipped around and in the barest glance she allowed herself, she estimated that there were probably upwards of thirty Hydra agents in full tac gear spilling into the room, weapons leveled.

The next second, she and Fitz had both thrown themselves flat on the floor -- Fitz took the time to grab Hall’s wrist and haul him down as well, bless his heart -- as bullets rained on the table and stage.

“We can’t stay here!” Fitz shouted to Jemma. 

She motioned to the nearest door. He nodded and they crawled across the rough carpeting on their elbows, shielded only by the rows of seats separating them from their attackers. There was a gap, though, between the end of the front row and the open door, and Jemma hesitated, panting.

“Break for it?” Fitz said, right next to her ear.

“Hang on.” Jemma flipped onto her back, sat up as far as their cover would allow, and hefted the harmless gun she’d been using to threaten Hall. Fitz, comprehending, pushed himself up on his knees, ready.

Jemma hurled the gun with all her might, arcing it into the center of the room. A barrage of shots followed, and they took the agents’ instinctual reaction to a moving target and threw themselves into the hallway.

Bullets hit the doorframe less than a second after they were through, but Jemma couldn’t stop to see how near the miss was. Running directly into Fitz, she shouted, “Go, go, go!”

“We need a plan!” he yelled as they sprinted down the empty corridor. One advantage they had -- possibly the  _ only  _ advantage they had -- was having spent four years taking classes in these buildings and knowing their intricacies better than their assailants would.

“In here!” Jemma hissed, grabbing him by the back of the shirt so he nearly fell onto his bum and throwing him through a side door.

“A supply closet, Simmons? Really?” he teased in a whisper. They were crammed chest to chest and Fitz placed a hand against the wall on either side of Jemma to steady himself. “God, imagine if we’d spent our time here like this. I would’ve had a much better time at uni.”

Jemma rolled her eyes, though a list sprang unbidden to her mind of all the nooks for snogging and shady trees for whispering sweet nothings and rooftop views for romantic evenings. Four years of wasted time. “We wouldn’t’ve graduated, Fitz.”

Fitz scrunched up one side of his face. “Yeah, don’t think I’d’ve minded.”

“Focus, focus, focus,” Jemma chided, splaying her hands across his chest. “We need a plan of attack.”

“Air vents?”

Jemma craned her head up, looking in the dim light for a telltale metal glint. “I think I see a tiny one up there but we’d never fit. And they would gas us if they heard us moving about up there.”

“Call for reinforcements?”

“Who?” Jemma said plaintively. “Not to shut down your every idea, but -- Hunter? Daisy? And then what? We all die together?”

“Then we run for it,” Fitz suggested, plowing past her last question. “Create a diversion, or--”

“I’m tired of running, Fitz.”

“Then we fake our deaths, like Hunter suggested--” Fitz’s voice grew increasingly frantic.

She had to shut him up. She had to shut him up and maybe this was the end of it all and if she didn’t do this she’d regret it. She wanted him to know, one last time, how he made her feel. 

She wrapped her arms around his neck, crooking her elbows to hold him there, and kissed him more ardently, more desperately, more lovingly than any single kiss from their night of love-making. There were no roaming hands this time, just his gentle support on her lower back, their noses brushing, Fitz’s lips so tender. She could feel each move he would make just before he made it -- or did she just know, intuitively somehow, because they were no longer two separate people? -- and a shattering ache trembled through her chest at this perfection.

Jemma could almost believe they really  _ were  _ still in university, that they’d snuck out of their respective afternoon classes and met up in this closet for a healthy snog, just two young people in love. After, they would walk back across the quad, hand in hand, maybe grab dinner in the dining hall and watch the sunset with a few friends. They would snuggle up on Fitz’s giant pillows and plan to watch a movie but end up just talking until dawn, Jemma’s head on Fitz’s chest, his fingers tracing patterns on her hip.

She had to stifle a sob as she fell back on her heels, wondering as air separated them whether that would be the last time she’d ever kiss him.

And she’d only just gotten started at it.

“Fitz,” she murmured, as he laid kiss after kiss on her forehead, his hands cradling her face. “When we open that door, it’ll be ‘kill or be killed’. Or, in our case, ICE or be killed.”

“God,” Fitz chuckled, and the way he rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye told her that he was fighting tears. “For secret agents we’re such bloody pacifists.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Fitz withdrew two guns -- two ICERs -- from his jacket and spun one so she could take the handle.

“No, Fitz,” she said urgently, even as she readied her weapon. “All of this, us-- I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love you so much, I--”

“If I have a chance to die for you, I will,” he interrupted her huskily.

“If you try to, and we live, I’ll kill you myself,” she laughed, even though they were both crying now.

“If we live, I promise to let you make me miserable every day for the rest of our lives.”

“I’ll do my best.”

They beamed at each other, impossibly, illogically, madly. Nothing made sense, and yet everything did, to be there side by side, to go out blazing like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Together, forever, at last.

“Ready?” Fitz whispered.

Jemma nodded, her throat too constricted to allow the passage of actual speech.

He turned the handle and pushed open the door.

Two Hydra agents had just turned the corner and Jemma took them out before they could shout for help. Fitz spun around the door and swept the legs out from under another agent who’d been about to careen around it, then ICEd him in the neck.

They walked blindly towards each other until they bumped into each other’s backs. Jemma reached behind her and gave Fitz’s arm a squeeze, and then, as the sound of dozens of people running neared their corridor, they raised their weapons.

There were too many. Jemma could see that, even as she and Fitz started shooting. However skilled they were as operatives, however many times they’d received accolades for their work, they had no cover, no vests or shields, no reinforcements or extra weapons. Only one person had ever been known to take down that many men on her own, and she was a legend.

Hydra, it seemed, was taking no chances. Because while their agents kept falling as Fitz and Jemma kept shooting, they didn’t return fire. Instead, one man stepped forward, an actual bazooka on his shoulder.

“Fitz, get  _ down _ !” Jemma screamed, and she spun, grabbed him by the shoulders, and forced him to the floor. She closed her eyes, knew she wouldn’t get out of the way in time, wondered if her adrenaline would keep her from feeling the momentary pain before death came.

Nothing happened.

She cracked an eye open, glanced down at Fitz -- who was fighting her hold, trying to get to his feet, to help her -- and then turned back around.

The Hydra agents were suddenly otherwise engaged, with no attention to spare for Jemma and Fitz.

The bazooka lay on the floor and two men were wreaking absolute havoc on any agents within reach, fighting hand-to-hand with the precision and speed of trained operatives.

Fitz staggered to his feet, gaping, and they both turned to look down the corridor towards the other group of Hydra agents. There, too, unknown reinforcements struck them down in droves, two women dressed all in black, one blonde and whirling batons with deadly efficiency, the other striking out with her bare hands.

“Is that...” Fitz whispered.

“That’s  _ Bobbi _ ,” Jemma gasped. “And the other one--”

“That’s the Cavalry, yeah,” chuckled one of the men as they approached, having dispatched their half of the Hydra agents. “Only don’t call her that. Hi,” he added, shaking Fitz’s hand and grinning at his absolute dumbstruck expression, “I’m Trip.”

“And I’m--”

“Agent Coulson?! I thought you were dead,” Fitz spluttered.

“Yeah, so did I,” Coulson said ruefully. “And I was, I guess, for a second, or seven minutes -- the details are a little fuzzy.”

“And now you got him talking about it, he’ll never shut up,” Melinda May, legend of any and all spy agencies, sighed as she stalked to join them, a corridor-full of immobile assassins behind her.

“Jemma!” Bobbi cried, hugging her and swaying side to side. “Oh, my god, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jemma replied dazedly. “But -- and not that we’re not glad to see you all, you have  _ impeccable  _ timing -- but ...  _ what  _ is happening? Who are you people?”

“We’re S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Trip supplied.

“ _ Real _ S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Bobbi added as Fitz opened his mouth. “We’re sure there are more people within the agency who aren’t Hydra, but these are all the folks we could be absolutely sure of without the time and tech to run checks on everyone.”

“But  _ you’re  _ not S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Jemma protested, struggling to keep up. Fitz put a hand on her arm, as if to say  _ literally none of this matters right now lovebug they just saved our lives _ .

“Actually, I am,” Bobbi chuckled. 

“Before she died, Peggy Carter started gathering intel suggesting Hydra had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., the CIA, MI6, and other international agencies,” Coulson offered. “She asked Melinda, here, to gather people she trusted.”

“May recruited me straight out of high school,” Bobbi continued. “By the time I joined the CIA, I was already a low-level S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. A bit confusing, I know, but it came in handy when Coulson asked me if there were other CIA agents I could vouch for, once the time came.”    


“And come it did,” May said quietly, and the way the others pivoted towards her, Jemma understood immediately that she --  _ the freaking CAVALRY _ \-- was the leader of this little group. “We’re gathering agents we’re sure of, people we can still trust to work towards the greater good rather than towards... whatever the hell it is Hydra stands for.” 

“Dr. Hall sent us a signal, when you entered his classroom, and we came as soon as we could,” Trip chimed in. “Nearly didn’t make it.”

“We’d like you to join our team,” May concluded. “Together, we think we can get S.H.I.E.L.D. back on track.”

Jemma looked to Fitz. It was his agency, after all -- would she be an interloper? Could they even trust this group? Coulson and May were legendary, of course, Bobbi had helped Jemma through the hardest time of her life, and Trip was hovering there with a first aid kit, ready to patch up their cuts.

She certainly  _ wanted  _ to trust them.

Fitz met her gaze and took her hand, guiding her slightly away from the group.

“Jemma,” he whispered, tugging her hands to his chest, “whatever you decide, I’ll go along. I know you’ve been feeling worn down by all this--”

“Honestly,” Jemma murmured, “I thought I wanted a vacation but as long as Hydra’s out there, I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe. And to leave now would be the most selfish choice we could make.” 

“I feel the same way,” Fitz sighed in relief, leaning his forehead to hers. “And now that we’re in this together--”

“It doesn’t seem as daunting,” Jemma finished in a rush. She wished she could kiss him, but with their soon-to-be colleagues looking on, they were already displaying less-than-professionally-appropriate PDA. So she suffused her gaze with every bit of heat and gratitude she could, just for Fitz, before turning to the others and said, “As long as you have some secret underground base where we can spend a couple days recovering, I think we’re in.”

“Great.” Coulson clapped his hands together. “Any chance you know any more folks we could drag along, kicking and screaming into hell?”

“Daisy,” Jemma said automatically, and Fitz nodded. “Agent Daisy Johnson of the CIA. I’ve worked with her for several years and she helped us with the Hall investigation. I’ll personally vouch for her.”

“I’ve got someone as well--”

“If you can convince him to leave his mum,” Jemma snorted.

“I’m not entirely sure he even  _ has _ a mum,” Fitz admitted. “I’ve never actually  _ seen  _ her.” The others were staring at them, so he added, “My mate, Hunter, he’s a mercenary but--”

“Wait, just wait,” Bobbi interrupted, and next to her Trip snorted with laughter. “Hunter, as in  _ Lance Hunter _ ?”

“How d’you--” Fitz gasped. “ _ Are you the hellbeast, Bobbi?! _ ” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I REALLY HATE WRITING ACTION, I'm sorry if that came through XD


	10. Chapter 10

“Give up yet?” Jemma panted, bouncing from foot to foot with her fists raised before her.

“Never,” Fitz shot back, and he made a feint towards her left side before jabbing towards her right.

Jemma grabbed his hand as it brushed her abdomen and twisted it behind his back, but before she could get it too far, Fitz dropped to a crouch and spun on the toes of his trainers so that his arm was before him again and he could wrench it away from her.

“You’ve been working on your squats,” Jemma chuckled, prowling after him as the momentum of his last move carried him a few steps across the mat.

Fitz shrugged, trying to disguise the heave of his chest under the tight sweat-wicking T-shirt that had somehow become part of his workout uniform. (He was fairly sure Jemma had noticed his progress in the weight room and wanted to enjoy it while they trained.) “Maybe I’m just really flexible.”

“Oh, I’m intimately aware of  _ that _ ,” Jemma grinned.

“Keep licking your lips like that and you’ll bite your tongue when I land a punch,” he warned.

She rolled her eyes and drilled a series of punches through the air towards his shoulder. Fitz let her approach, pretended to be waiting for his own opportunity to strike, and then saw her overcommit, as she always did. He stepped aside, let her fall forward slightly, and moved around behind her, trapping her to his chest with an arm across the front of her shoulders.

“Forfeit?” he whispered, trailing his lips a centimeter away from the sweat adorning her neck.

Jemma tilted her head back towards his shoulder and laughed. “Never.”

Using her lower center of gravity, she bent her knees and flipped him over her so that he landed, hard, on the mat. Fitz grunted, but it was mostly for show, to lure Jemma into false security and spousal pity, and when she circled his prone form, smirking down at him, he lunged forward, sweeping out with one leg.

Jemma squeaked but easily jumped over his leg. The maneuver left Fitz awkwardly posed, raised halfway to a push-up but with his legs scissored.

“Stay like that a moment, would you?” Jemma teased, strolling towards her phone on one of the benches. “That’s a  _ great _ angle of your bum.”

Fitz snarled playfully and launched himself up and after her. She trotted backwards, still laughing, and when he dove for her, she easily ducked under his outstretched arms. He recognized his mistake a second too late, and as he turned to face her, she slammed him into the wall and mimicked the motions necessary to knee his groin, break his nose, and fracture his larynx.

“Forfeit?” she murmured sweetly, pressing her forearm against his collarbone and leaning her thigh across his hips.

In answer, he dipped to kiss her, his motion restricted so that when their lips met Jemma had to stretch up to deepen the kiss. Panting as they both still were from sparring, it didn’t last long, and Fitz withdrew to press a line of kisses to her arm under his chin.

“I’m nauseated, just so you know,” Hunter called from the treadmill.

“You cook, I wash the dishes,” Jemma reminded Fitz, patting his chest as she released him and moved to grab their towels.

“See, what I don’t get is why you fight over the chores when you  _ still  _ both have to do chores,” Daisy chimed in from the doorway, where she and Trip had been leaning for the last few minutes. “Seems rigged, if you ask me.” 

“They’re ready for you,” Trip chuckled with a nod to Fitz and Jemma. “Once everyone’s cleaned up we’re meeting in the hangar.”

“Oh, damn, I’ll have to cut my workout short,” Hunter sighed. “What a travesty.”   
  
  
  
  


Half an hour of rushed showering and dressing later, Fitz met Jemma in the hallway outside Daisy’s bunk.

“Wow,” he choked out, strangely breathless as Jemma approached, smoothing down the front of her knee-length peach dress.

“It’s no wedding gown, but--”

He took her hands, knowing she would understand and forgive their nervous trembling. “You look like a fairy princess,” he assured her. “A very intimidating, ass-kicking fairy princess,” he added quickly, as she chuckled and peered down at the bruises and scars on her knees and arms.

“And you’re still the hottest man I know,” she murmured, standing on tip-toe to kiss him.

“Okay, okay, save it for the chapel,” Daisy interrupted them. “It’s go time, kids.”

“Aren’t you  _ already  _ married?” Hunter demanded as he fell into step with them.

“They’re renewing their vows, Hunter,” Bobbi snapped from the other side of the couple. It was an off-again week in their relationship, apparently. “People who love each other do that.”

“We thought about divorcing so we could remarry, but that would leave a dreadful legal paper trail and seeing as we’re still hiding out, we thought it’d be best to simplify it,” Jemma explained.    


“I hope you like what we’ve done with the place, given the limited resources.... It’s not quite the ballroom at the Plaza, but...” Daisy pushed open the door to the airplane hangar and stepped back, watching Jemma and Fitz’s reactions.

A path of flower petals led across the concrete floor up to a bower, twined in Christmas lights and fake vines. Beneath the arch stood May, in a gorgeous black silk pantsuit, and Coulson and Trip, both in tuxes, waited off to the side, beaming with pride.

“Oh Daisy, it’s perfect,” Jemma gasped, and Fitz was glad she had, because he didn’t think he had the power to speak at that moment. Only her hand in his kept him moving towards the bower.

May smiled, truly smiled, as they reached her. “Surprise. I went out yesterday and got ordained, just to make this all official.”

“It’s that easy?” Jemma chuckled, swiping at a tear that had been dangling off her eyelashes.

“Do we have to call you Minister?” Fitz asked.

“Please don’t,” May sighed, and everyone laughed. “Now, if everyone’s ready, please join hands and we’ll begin.”

There was no real pre-determined script for vow renewals, but May had prepared something about their ‘special bond’ and their ‘timeless friendship’ and really, it sounded a lot like what the original minister had said at their original, fake wedding. Fitz knew he should be listening, should be appreciating the import of what was being said, but his hands rested lightly in Jemma’s and she was glowing up at him -- really  _ glowing,  _ because smiling wasn’t word enough to capture the shine of her eyes or the fullness of her cheeks or the way her chin would periodically tremble with happy tears barely withheld -- and he got lost in her instead. It was so different, and yet so like, their wedding... with one significant divergence.

“All this being recognized, do you, Jemma Fitz, promise to sustain, uphold, and improve upon the vows you have made to Leopold Fitz?”

Jemma laughed at Fitz’s indignant nose-wrinkle but nodded. “I do.”

“And do, Leopold Fitz, promise to sustain, uphold, and improve upon the vows you have made to Jemma Fitz?”

They’d written their new vows over the last several months and then decided, last week, to screw the surprise and share them with each other in the first light of morning, snuggled in bed. Their friends told them they were ridiculous to still want the ceremony, but private as their vows were, the statement should be public.

“I do,” Fitz affirmed.

“The rings, please.”

Daisy popped forward, looking like she was about to cry herself, and handed one ring each to Fitz and to Jemma.

Jemma pressed her lips together as Fitz slid the simple band over her finger, snugging it against the old ring. She captured his hand before it could float away and did the same, wiggling it over his slightly larger fingers, and then kissed his fingertips.

May looked between them, folding the paper from which she’d been reading. 

“Then you may--”

Fitz didn’t need to be told.  _ This  _ was the biggest divergence from their wedding.  Last time, as he recalled, they’d share a brief, awkward kiss, just enough to sell the notion that they could be two young people in love. This time--

This time they’d be doing it properly.

To the delighted squeals and shouts of their onlookers, Fitz wrapped his arms around Jemma’s waist and dipped her as far as the length of her dress would allow, then kissed her, kissed her as she sighed against him and hooked one arm around his neck for support while trailing her other hand -- her ring hand, with the new band -- over his ear and cheek and around to his chin. Kissed her as he should’ve done seven years ago, kissed her as he planned to do every day for the rest of their lives.

“I love you,” Jemma murmured, eyes still closed, when he finally eased away from her.

“I love  _ you _ ,” he whispered back, helping her back up and holding her against him, foreheads touching, for a moment longer before they were swarmed by their friends.

Spy life had its downsides. But most of the time, Mr. and Mrs. Fitz honestly didn’t notice.   
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now return you to your regular scheduled programming. Thanks for reading!!


End file.
